Discover why Kathleen Celmins, founder of Glow Social AI software, chose to invest in professional branding over DIY solutions. Learn her decision-making process, the transformation that followed, and practical advice for founders considering brand investment.

Bio

Kathleen Celmins (she/her) is the founder and CEO of Glow Social, helping service-based businesses outshine corporate competitors through strategic social media. With 15+ years of marketing experience, she’s created a solution that delivers professionally written content without the usual time investment. Kathleen is passionate about empowering local businesses to leverage their authentic advantages that corporate chains simply can’t match.

TRANSCRIPT

Bethany: Hello and welcome back to Unbreakable Brands. Today I’m speaking with Kathleen Celmins and we’re gonna talk about why this AI software founder spent real money on her brand.

Kathleen Celmins is the founder and CEO of Glow Social, helping service-based businesses outshine corporate competitors through strategic social media. With 15+ years of marketing experience, she’s created a solution that delivers professionally written content without the usual time investment. Kathleen is passionate about empowering local businesses to leverage their authentic advantages that corporate chains simply can’t match.

Welcome to the show, Kathleen.

Kathleen: Thank you. Thank you for having me, Bethany.

Bethany: Yes, of course. So if you couldn’t tell, Kathleen is a client of mine. She’s been a client of mine a few different times. And we’re also friends IRL, which is great. I met her when I used to live in Arizona. She’s like my one and only friend when I first moved there. So I love that it’s come full circle. And she’s now the founder of an AI software. So let’s start with that, the basics- what does your software do? Who is it built for? You like had never built a software before and here you are with an AI software. So run me through that.

Kathleen: Right? Well, I’ve done a lot of learning. I’ve been at this probably for a year. And in that year, I feel like I’ve gotten myself at least a master’s degree in things that did not come naturally to me. But when I saw the landscape- I live in the suburbs of Phoenix. And here, like in a lot of places, when new businesses are open, they are very frequently corporate owned or franchise or private equity backed. And there’s not a lot of space for the local business. It costs millions of dollars to build something or thousands of dollars to rent a space. And I realized that we’re going to get left behind. The local businesses are going to get left behind because who has more money than private equity? Nobody.

So I wanted to have a solution that helped the business owner who knows that, I mean, the truth is businesses that post on social media get more business than those that don’t. There’s social media that’s owned by search engines that if you just did that, you rank higher in local search results. But most of the local businesses that I know didn’t get into this to become a full-time content creator. A lot of my business ideal customers are the kind of people that think that any time spent behind a computer is wasted time because they’re not out in the field. They’re not doing their work. They’re not mowing lawns or putting roofs on houses. If they’re sitting at their desk, they’re wasting their time.

And when I saw the opportunity that AI presents that helps them without much of a content background create an online presence to stay looking open online, I knew that those were my people.

Bethany: Yes, I love that. Such a huge gap in the market too, especially because part of our conversation was like, this is for such a specific group of people. And I feel like AI software in general doesn’t necessarily target specific groups of people. It’s so generalized. And I love that you put your clients first before the software piece, and then the software just makes it possible overall. And so you had really strong direction. And then, I’m sure that comes with all your marketing background, really strong marketing that could follow that of who you’re speaking to.

Kathleen: It’s funny because I am a natural marketer, I haven’t done any marketing yet because I’ve had to be building this software. And it’s exciting though because being able to know who I’m helping really gets it out, like out of my head. You know, it’s $49 a month and you get a full month of content in your voice that helps promote your business in a way that takes all the mental load off.

And that has been my north star, my guiding focus. I belong to an organization here called Local First. And that’s what- they have all the data about. You know, when a new coffee shop comes to town or a new coffee shop gets opened by a local business, they hire a local brand designer. They hire a local furniture company. Well, when Starbucks comes to town, they’ve got that all covered and they don’t have that much of an impact on the local economy. So, you’re right, it has really helped keeping my person top of mind, because they’re not gonna wanna edit. They’re not gonna want to think about it. And so it’s got, what we have, the idea is, like you spend two minutes a month on social media and that’s it. And it goes out automatically, it goes out on the schedule, it connects to all the social media platforms you’re on, it’ll help you create new accounts for social platforms you’re not on yet. The whole goal is to make it as easy as possible to look open online.

Bethany: Yes, I love that. And build trust too or authority in some ways of like, people will still, wherever they find you, like Google my business, maybe you’re ranking for SEO, whatever it is as a local company, people are going to then look at your social. It’s pretty much the automatic follow-up, at least for Millennials, Gen Zs, and several generations in there are gonna look there. And then if you have nothing there or you haven’t posted anything it tanks your credibility. That was one of our conversations that I think was really important. 

And the software is not necessarily about like growing a huge following and like, you know, social media management-

Kathleen: Going viral. 

Bethany: -going viral, like growing a platform like only on Instagram. It’s to support your business and what you’re already doing and looking online and being able to show up when you have 50 other projects on the books and more coming in, which I think is so needed for the small local businesses and I’m excited to see where this goes, beyond the local space it’s in now, into other regional areas. So that’s very exciting. To see AI used that way too because I think there’s a scare factor to it- you know? Especially for like local or small businesses thinking about using AI, it’s like, “That’s not even for me” but you’ve really bridged the gap between the two in how you’ve made your software, which is really cool. 

Kathleen: Thank you. When I think about my person, I think of a roofer, right? Like they’re afraid of AI, but I’m not going get on my roof. Like that’s way scarier to me.

Bethany: Yeah, literally, yeah. 

Kathleen: Like that’s way scarier to me.

Bethany: Yeah, you’re like, “That’s for you. I thought this is going to help you.” I love that. 

Okay, so one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the podcast was you chose to make a real investment in your brand and work with me to create your brand. And then we laid out your initial home page flow. So those were the ways that we worked together. As someone with an AI software, like you could have easily leaned on AI or DIY components to create a brand, but instead you made a real investment in it. So I want to talk about your decision of why you decided it was worth spending money on. And we will go through the process there, but what was like the, “I need to actually invest in the brand design portion of things and not try and have AI generate it for me”?

Kathleen: Yeah, so, you know, I tried that, of course, right? Like, and it looked like I did, right? And I thought, you know, that these created all these other brands for me, I can use that as a base and do it myself. And that’s a normal thing to think- and wrong. And yes, we are friends in real life, but I did, I texted you and said, “Don’t give me a friend discount. That’s not what I want. I want this to be a real thing.” And then the invoice came and I nearly threw up. I almost cried. I’m so pre-revenue that it was, and I don’t think that you’re, I think your pricing is more than fair. It was just, “God, am I really going to spend this kind of money right now?” 

And the second I did, it became a real company. I can’t explain that transformation except that it was so much about like, “Okay, well, a real company does invest in branding. I could do the thing that every AI company does and I could have a dark blue background with purple font and call it good and have it look like everything else.” But as soon as I spent that money, and it’s not the only money I spent, my tech stack is out of control, but as soon as I spent the money on branding, it was like, “Okay, well, this is now software.”

And I am in these groups of, in AI it’s a male dominated field. And everybody said, “No, you don’t need to do that. It looks fine as it is.” It didn’t. And as soon as I put the new components on, which I totally did way before the homepage was redesigned, even the guys in the AI group were like, “Oh yeah, no. That was the right call. Now it looks like real software.”

Bethany: This is like such a segue off of what you said, but I find it interesting in any male dominated sphere that that’s a common thing that my clients will say is like the responses, “It looks fine. You don’t really need to like spend money or time on things that maybe are deemed more feminine or are aesthetic based.” But then once there’s that transformation. They’re like, “Oh, yeah, now it looks actually real and legit, and it’s going to connect with people and isn’t DIY.” It’s cool to see women like blazing those trails and putting that forward because design really does matter and impacts all the other aspects of how people are going to interact with you, even the first impression or dwell time or click rate, all of those things.

Kathleen: And that’s still in the future for me. But for me, what it did was it installed in my mind that this is real. I’m not just messing around. I’m not just going to stumble onto a piece of software that helps people. It gave me more direction to say, like, “Okay, now I have this brand. Now it looks professional. Now I need to make it work.”

Bethany: Yeah.

Kathleen: And even work with AI, right? Those brand documents, the really robust brand documents uploaded to AI meant that everything AI created for me had the right colors and fonts and everything that is important for brand consistency.

Bethany: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, and then tell me a little bit about like, obviously, you made the leap. You saw the invoice. You did it. 

Kathleen: I clicked the button!

Bethany: You clicked the button! And then we went into the process of it all. So I’d love to just hear you talk about the process of working with me and if there’s anything that surprised you in terms of building out a brand strategy and then the branding together. Walk me through that.

Kathleen: Yeah, that was really fun. It’s funny too, cause you were busy and I booked a time to do branding. I think I didn’t get it on your calendar until February of this year. And I thought, “Oh I’m going to need it before then. Cause it’s going to launch before then”. Which is the hubris you need in order to start something you don’t know how to do because that’s just not true. But I remember like filling out the brand stuff like on Christmas break and like just playing around and looking at like colors and stuff. And then just honestly, the scariest part of the entire process was paying that first invoice, setting it up to like click and pay. 

After that, I just leaned in, trusted you and filled out all the stuff I needed to fill out. AI really helped me with my demographic and psychographic stuff. And so none of that was hard. That was all really fun. And then once I gave it to you, once I knew that I was giving you what I really felt, I didn’t think about it at all. I was like, “Okay, Bethany, take the wheel.”

Bethany: Do your thing. Okay, and you always have had a lot of trust in me too, because I think we had that rapport ahead of time and you’ve seen my work over the years. So I think that probably helped a lot. And I love that you used AI to fill out the questionnaire. More and more of my clients are using ChatGPT. I mean, I can tell because it’s like, you can tell that the phrasing and it’s copy and pasted. But it’s like such a good exercise to narrow things down. And I remember when you were first filling it out, you had like a lot of back and forth initially with who you were talking to and narrowing that down ahead of time. And you discovered a lot about like your audience. So if you’re comfortable, maybe you could share a little bit about that process.

Kathleen: Yeah, so at first I thought it was going to be for social media managers. To me there’s three different pieces of social media. There’s the behind the scenes, I am a real person content. There’s the conversion oriented content- click here, buy this, download this, book a call type of thing. And then the industry authority content. And when I was looking at the landscape, the easiest one to outsource to AI is the authority building piece because the social media manager is not an expert in the types of windows that are the most heat resistant in the desert or whatever. 

Bethany: Yeah.

Kathleen: So, and they don’t need to be because then they also have to be an expert on sustainable pest control and interior design. And then, you know, like once you have like five or six clients as a social media manager, it’s very hard to do that authority piece.

And it’s important to do the other two pieces’ really, really important. But so I thought, “Okay, well, I’ll have this and they’ll pay me and then they can upcharge for the rest of it. Then they can spend more time on engagement. They can spend more time making pretty carousel posts for the other two pillars.” And more and more, I had like probably 10 or 15 conversations with social media managers. And I realized they weren’t charging enough to pay for the software. “So if I have to pay for this, then I need to charge more.” Okay, but that’s a different conversation. You probably need to charge more, but okay. 

Then I went to this conference, this local, the Doing Good Business conference through Local First and all of those people- I was like, “No, these are my people.” These- this my avatar. These aren’t just my avatar. These are actual people who know they need to be on social media, but they don’t like it or it’s a drain or they open Facebook and they think, “I don’t know. I don’t know.” And then they close it or they think they’re going to post something on Instagram and they scroll for two hours and they haven’t posted anything. And then they think social media is not going to work for them. Well, it’s not when you do it that way. 

You know, and it’s been a couple of iterations of the software and now it’s entirely hands off. So you, there’s a short onboarding form and then we learn about how you talk or how the person who wrote your website talks- because you approved that. 

Bethany: Yep.

Kathleen: And so I hadn’t thought- I had this big thing on brand voice at the beginning. Upload this and download, whatever. And then it just looks like homework. And so with the iteration of that and then keeping that roofer in mind. They’re not going to upload anything. They haven’t written anything. They don’t care about that stuff. They want it to sound good.

Bethany: Yeah or they’re going to say, “We sound trustworthy.” And you’re like, “What does that mean?” That’s it. That’s all they’re going to say. Yeah.

Kathleen: Yeah, casual and reliable. 

Bethany: That’s it. That’s all they’re going to say. Yeah.

Kathleen: No, no, it doesn’t matter. So it doesn’t really matter. And the brand voice piece is still there, but it’s not as much of a cornerstone as it was in the first iteration of this. And as I’ve learned more about the software, I have learned how to make it easier. So now I have a lot more respect for companies like Apple who make things just so seamless and easy because it takes a lot of work to make something simple.

Bethany: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, like when you told me you were building a software, I was like, “Wow, that’s an undertaking.” Like that terrifies me. I mean, it’s huge just to wrap your mind around, but also that onboarding process I think was a cool thing that came out of some of our work of like, “Okay, what are people gonna do? What’s the software going to analyze?” And I love the switch of like analyze the website and the copy that’s on there, because hopefully you spent some time on that or a little bit of investment in that. And then that can set the stage for what this software is really going to do for you. 

So I’d love to hear once we were done after the process, I delivered everything and then your brand is going to is live. We did the website home page layout, what were some of the results or shifts that you noticed? I mean, I know you’re still like in baby infant phase of launching this. So but what were some of the things you noticed? Internally, externally, any sort of response right away like in your email marketing or anything like that?

Kathleen: Early response has been good. I’m still in beta. So one of the funny things about when you’re when you think you’re going to launch something and you don’t know what you’re doing, you learn all of the tools. So I have like a decent level of knowledge on like several pieces of software I didn’t know existed a year ago. And each of them taught me where the limits were.

And so my latest iteration of this is that I’m not using no code. I am building it with code. And that is even scarier. I texted a friend like last week and I said, “I think by the end of this week I’m gonna know what GitHub is for.” I didn’t, like I understand it, but like now I’m on it. 

So these softwares are meant to be MVP. And I don’t want like, none of what I was doing would get me past a thousand subscribers. And so I thought, “Okay, well, I’ll save the money. The first, whatever, $50,000 in profit will go toward a coded solution.” And then Claude4 came out and I don’t need to spend that. I’m going to be able to do it for $200. 

And I’m so excited because now my mission is to help a million small businesses automate their social media and look open online. And that’s not scary anymore. I can do it now. I have a database and a backend and code things and I’ll learn how to talk like a bro soon, but I can’t.

Bethany: Umm, I don’t know if you ever need to do that.

Kathleen: I know it’s probably not in my DNA.

Bethany: Amazing. And going back to the initial thing, that it’s out there though, did you see any sort of results or shift or how did it change your approach other than now you’re reiterating it again?

Kathleen: All the things you think of as like personality downsides, things you wish you were different with, at least for me, have been things that are actually beneficial. So I’m always someone who wants to know what the new shiny software is. And that’s actually been useful for me. That has been helpful. A feature, not a bug. And just knowing it’ll scale. My homepage doesn’t look at all like it did when you built it because my, not because I wanted to change everything, but because my mission got stronger, my avatar got clearer, and my, now there’s like actually my personality, my picture on the homepage and stuff that I would not have approved had you done it. Because it was, I mean, it wasn’t that long ago. We’re talking in May and it was finished in February, but that’s a long time for software that was constantly in motion.

Bethany: Do you feel like my approach and deliverables were able to easily shift with you during the evolution process since you’re still in beta?

Kathleen: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, the foundation has been like the bedrock of everything. So, you know, when you look at my website, you won’t see the homepage layout, but you won’t think, “God, what does she do?”

Bethany: Yeah like, “What is happening?”

Kathleen: I’m not violating the foundation that you set. I don’t have a lot of screenshots because it’s in beta and I keep the look keep changing.

Bethany: Of course. 

Kathleen: But the fact that I have a solid foundation, logos that were square for the things that need to be square, the icons that made sense, I love seeing how the colors work together. And every time I see my logo, I’m like, “It looks so good.”

Bethany: So professional. Good. I’m glad. I feel like that, you know, this path is not a common one for a lot of my clients in general, too. I mean, I’m not working with startups every day. Like, I’m selective about that for this reason, too, because it’s like constantly evolving. You know, software as a service is constantly evolving in those first few years. And not that I don’t think I could serve them well with what I did at serving you well, but it’s like such a constant change phase that a lot of people aren’t even open to investing in those foundational pieces to begin with. So I just really appreciate you sharing like the transparency and the evolution and the change and all the things that you’re facing as this grows into hopefully a really big deal helping a million businesses. I mean, that’s like our goal here. So we’ll have to have a check in.

Kathleen: Yeah, it’s scary, all of it’s scary. I think of design in in terms of like architecture like Architects think they’re doing them the important work, but you can’t sit on a house you’ve got to have a designer come in and put things in and I think like without the design element I don’t think I would have been able to get the architecture off because I’m someone who wants it to look good as it’s being built. And so like before you even finished the final deliverables, I was in there like fixing all the fonts and adjusting all the colors. And all of a sudden it looked real, like even without the full finished thing, because there’s so many elements inside a piece of software that I was like, “Oh now, now I can breathe out. Now I can exhale.” Like I don’t think it would be where it is without the brand. 

Bethany: I think it’s like creates buy-in. It creates interest. Like you’re sending this out into the world and you want some pride attached to it. I mean, into the world as in beta testing. But like you’re sending it out there and how are you going to get that interest and start building, you know, a following and recognizability and visibility? And I think that’s like the key piece people forget is that even as brands evolve, all brands evolve, obviously software at a much faster pace, especially when it’s being built, but all brands evolve. And I think there’s this idea that like, maybe that’s not true. Or if it does evolve, you have to totally change everything, but your brand strategy and your branding should evolve with it and not change all the time because you’re building that visibility and recognizability. And if you don’t have consistency there, then it’s not going to be built. I mean, we all know what certain platforms look like and their feel and their colors. And like we can land on it without reading it. Like how many times are we reading the name of a site or a platform that we use all the time? Like no more. And that’s because the brand did the work for you. And so to me that was like a really important part that of our work that I was hoping to support you with like for the next chapters of this.

Kathleen: Yeah, thank you. And it was funny because initially, because I thought it would be social media managers as my avatar, I was like, “Okay, it has to be gorgeous. It has to be absolutely gorgeous.” But it still needed to be, it still needs to be right. 

Bethany: Yeah.

Kathleen: I’m the kind of person that won’t write in a Google Doc without changing the font first. So like I can’t like, I can’t over like, again not not a not a personality defect, but like it had to look good to me in order for me to say, “Hey, check this out.”

Bethany: Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, your name is attached to it, too. So it matters a lot. 

Okay, and then I would love to ask you, like if a founder or someone is on the fence about investing in brand strategy, branding, what would you tell them now that you’ve been through the process at a very early stage of development?

Kathleen: Yours actually, I should clarify, yours wasn’t the first real money I spent. I had to buy a premium domain. 

Bethany: That’s true.

Kathleen: And so once I was in on that, once I spent four figures on a domain, which I have never done before and I find it rude that I have to like-

Bethany: But you know what? It’s worth it.

Kathleen: Yes, it’s short, it’s memorable. And once I did that, and you know me as a person, not everybody listening to this knows me, but that I needed to do to make sure that this was the thing. I’m not gonna keep making new websites on this. Nope, this is it. You don’t spend $4,000 on a website that you’re not gonna use. But as soon as I had that, and I think as soon as a founder knows what they’re calling it and knows that they’re going to use a website you should make it look real as early as possible.

And I do think in a couple of years, I’m going to come back to you and say, “Okay, this got me out of beta. This got me the first thousand customers. Now what do we need to do?” And because I haven’t asked you to do anything on the interior. I’ve used the design principles and so I have the same colors in the right, the web fonts, but that’s it. 

So I think you can do it in iterations. And if you’re someone like me who isn’t or someone who’s not like me, who’s not bootstrapping, if you’ve got investment money, you definitely should invest in a brand right away. 

Bethany: Yeah.

Kathleen: I mean, even bootstrapping, you should. But if you’ve got VC funding, you should get a designer right away to help you visualize. And if you’re someone who has a visual, a strong visual brain, if you can get a designer in there to help you visualize what is possible, it’s surprising how quickly that will adjust how you see your company, especially when you’re small.

Bethany: Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly. And I agree with you. I think in a few years, we’ll be doing a full website design and relooking a copy and language and all of the pieces that connect. I generally always say for service-based businesses or small businesses, we need to do it all at once so it’s the most effective. But in this case, that would not be most effective-

Kathleen: No, it wouldn’t have been effective.

Bethany: -or it wouldn’t have been effective at all because all of that changed as you reiterate it. And as it goes through beta testing, it’s going to continue to change. So it wouldn’t have made any sense to do anything other than strategy, branding and visuals, make it look real, and then in a few years, revisit. 

And I love that that’s a connection that I can support with and continue to help because I want this to be really successful for you. 

Kathleen: Thank you.

Bethany: I think it’s a fantastic idea. Yeah, I’m here. I mean, I’m always like cheering on my clients, but I’m really cheering on this because I feel like I’ve walked alongside you of this journey of like, and every time like, “Dang, that’s a lot. It’s a lot to take on.”

Kathleen: It is. It is.

Bethany: So yeah, but I just want to say thank you for trusting me and choosing to work with me and building out such an integral part of your company with me at the very start.

Kathleen: Thank you. Thank you for making it real.

Bethany: Yes, yeah, absolutely. Okay, well, that said, we’ve talked a lot about the software, but we haven’t said like the things- so run through where can people find you connect with you learn more about this.

Kathleen: Yeah, the website is glowsocial.com. All of my links are there.

Bethany: Love it. Yeah, that was the domain, folks. That was $4,000. 

Kathleen: Yeah, that’s my $4,000 domain. 

Bethany: Yes, that’s what it cost. Okay, and I’ll link that in the show notes too so that people can explore and take a peek, especially if you were listening as an entrepreneur and had one of the businesses that felt really aligned with this. It might be a very helpful tool that you can test out.

Kathleen: If you are beta testing oriented, I’ll give you a coupon code for beta testing. We’ll call it Bethany Works Beta. I’ll give you a month free if you promise to tell me everything that’s wonky. I need as many different people in there testing it as possible.

Bethany: Perfect. Okay, amazing. I’ll drop that in there. I mean, I’m sure there’s people listening who want to mess around with that kind of stuff and give you the feedback. All right. 

Kathleen: Yes, that would be great!

Bethany: Yes. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Kathleen: Thank you!