Sarah O’Sell is the Principal Consultant and Founder of Anim8 Collective. She is a technology, communications, and circular economy strategist focused on investment, curiosity, and stewardship to shape future realities. She is an award-winning, ambitious systems innovator with over 10yrs experience in entrepreneurship, community growth, and has impacted $MMs in business development for transformational companies.

Sarah is one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met and the way she sees business and marketing is extremely insightful and creative but also very easy to understand.

In particular I found her perspective on systems thinking particularly compelling. She tends to approach building a business (or solving environmental problems) from a wholistic approach that involves many factors instead of the binary give-and-take that we’re used to in other thinking frameworks.

She shares some great wisdom for founders of early stage startups to help them get traction with their storytelling. Her company, Anim8, and the free systems thinking canvas can help founders get clarity and implement the right stories in the right places.

Timecodes

0:00 - Intro and Cats

3:45 - Growing up in Washington

7:10 - What are Planetary Boundaries?

9:20 - Systems Thinking, sustainability and the supply chain

13:10 - Implementing Systems Thinking in a startup

19:08 - Practicing Systems Thinking

22:00 - Storytelling at every customer touchpoint

28:25 - The awareness phase in a marketing funnel

31:55 - Founders’ Storytelling Struggles 

33:46 - What is Anim8 and Growth Lab

36:25 - Sarah’s Systems Thinking Canvas

Resources

Planetary boundaries - https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458

Breaking Boundaries: The Science of our Planet - https://www.netflix.com/title/81336476

Donut Economics - https://www.amazon.com/Doughnut-Economics-Seven-21st-Century-Economist/dp/1603586741

https://doughnuteconomics.org/

Circular economy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_economy

Systems Thinking - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_thinking

Systems Thinking Canvas - https://www.anim8co.com/growth-lab-small-business-development-consultant-tools-sustainable-inclusive

Ideal Customer Profile - https://pipeline.zoominfo.com/marketing/ideal-customer-profile

Western Washington University - https://www.wwu.edu/

Regenerative farming - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_agriculture

Paul Stamets - https://paulstamets.com/

Women in 3D printing - https://womenin3dprinting.com/

Customer lifecycle - https://blog.hubspot.com/service/customer-lifecycle-management

Sixth Sense ABM - https://6sense.com/

Sarah’s Contact info

Website: https://www.anim8co.com

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/circular-economy/

Raconteur Animation is a studio that helps disruptive tech and industrial hardware companies launch new products confidently with stunning 3D animations

Website: http://raconteuranimation.com

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joerule/