Good Ideas + Bad Decisions

In this episode of "Good Ideas + Bad Decisions," Kat and Ellen talk with Milly Skiles, founder of Milly Skiles Studio, a content marketing strategy studio for health and wellness brands. Milly shares her path from journalism into marketing after stepping away to raise her kids, and how storytelling shapes her approach to helping clients, especially mental health providers, differentiate themselves. The conversation covers the value of niching down, building genuine connection beyond online metrics, and using AI thoughtfully as an editorial tool. Milly also talks about her growth plans, from sharpening her sales approach to going hyper-local in the Bay Area. 

Milly Skiles is a content marketing strategist with over 20+ years of experience in journalism, marketing, and communications. She helps founders and marketing directors build trust-led marketing that earns the right reputation before the first click. With an editorial understanding of how writing, design, and user experience work together, Milly builds and executes strategies grounded in real-world constraints. Her approach turns scattered ideas into content that compounds over time. She uses AI practically and efficiently while protecting originality, credibility, and voice. Milly currently specializes in health and wellness brands, helping them sharpen their messaging, identify the channels worth their time, and fill them with rich content that converts.

Kat is the Founder of kat&co, a Creative Operations Consultant, and the Co-Owner and Director of Operations at Benchwork Fabrication. She helps interior designers and creatives turn ideas into streamlined, sustainable businesses. With a background in psychology and deep experience in creative business operations, she’s known for navigating the intersection of creativity and systems with both strategy and empathy. Join her newsletter, The kat&co Download.

Ellen Hockley is a three-time entrepreneur, small business consultant, community builder, and the founder of Ellen Hockley Consulting and SAGE Women. She guides female founders to build intuitive, values-driven businesses aligned with the life they want for themselves and their families. Join her Substack newsletter, ⁠The Quiet Wins⁠.

00:00 Podcast Welcome

01:15 Meet Milly Skiles

02:13 From Journalism to Marketing

05:16 Storytelling as Strategy

08:38 Niching Down Debate

13:12 Brand Refresh Real Talk

14:09 Building Personal Brand Offline

18:41 AI Tools and Ethics

22:29 Client Acquisition Shift

23:14 Inbound vs Outbound Sales

24:10 Retainers and Niche Focus

25:04 Hyperlocal Bay Area Targeting

27:06 Coaching and Pricing Frameworks

29:31 Cold Outreach and Phone Calls

32:59 Community Networking in Cafes

35:45 Content Strategy Deliverables

38:16 SEO and Annual Content Planning

39:38 Buyers Journey Wayfinding

42:30 Final Wisdom and Where to Find Her

45:44 Episode Wrap and Outro

In this mini-episode of "Good Ideas + Bad Decisions," Kat and Ellen catch up after a chaotic stretch for both of them. Ellen has been managing family illness, the loss of a pet, and travel prep, while Kat is also dealing with difficult family health news, an exciting but stressful shop project, and pet health scares. Kat and Ellen trade thoughts on AI, weighing concerns about its environmental and cognitive costs against how genuinely useful it's been for their small businesses, from troubleshooting and proofreading to organizing scattered ideas.

Don't forget to⁠ submit your business questions⁠ for future episodes! 

Kat is the Founder of kat&co, a Creative Operations Consultant, and the Co-Owner and Director of Operations at Benchwork Fabrication. She helps interior designers and creatives turn ideas into streamlined, sustainable businesses. With a background in psychology and deep experience in creative business operations, she’s known for navigating the intersection of creativity and systems with both strategy and empathy. Join her newsletter, The kat&co Download.

Ellen Hockley is a three-time entrepreneur, small business consultant, community builder, and the founder of Ellen Hockley Consulting and SAGE Women. She guides female founders to build intuitive, values-driven businesses aligned with the life they want for themselves and their families. Join her Substack newsletter, ⁠The Quiet Wins⁠.

In this episode of "Good Ideas + Bad Decisions," Kat hosts solo with Christina Hunt, founder of Haus von Albe and a brand/community strategist who also teaches yoga and human design. Christina shares her winding path from Germany, where she left a long-term relationship and pursued yoga training, to Texas, and eventually into a Meta role that built her paid media skills before she launched her own business. She discusses her evolution from Meta ads into broader marketing strategy and fractional CMO work, the exhaustion of chasing algorithms and inconsistent startup budgets, and her advice for founders: prioritize self-knowledge, set boundaries, and take time to recognize your own accomplishments.

With 15 years of experience at the intersection of brand strategy and community building, Christina Hunt believes the best marketing doesn't feel like marketing, it feels like belonging. She has built brand communities at Kit and Ace in London, grown boutique fitness brands in one of the world's most competitive markets, directed strategy for global festivals across four continents, and consulted for founders across the US and UK. She now brings her expertise in marketing strategy to brands through Haus von Albe.

Kat is the Founder of kat&co, a Creative Operations Consultant, and the Co-Owner and Director of Operations at Benchwork Fabrication. She helps interior designers and creatives turn ideas into streamlined, sustainable businesses. With a background in psychology and deep experience in creative business operations, she’s known for navigating the intersection of creativity and systems with both strategy and empathy. Join her newsletter, The kat&co Download.

Ellen Hockley is a three-time entrepreneur, small business consultant, community builder, and the founder of Ellen Hockley Consulting and SAGE Women. She guides female founders to build intuitive, values-driven businesses aligned with the life they want for themselves and their families. Join her Substack newsletter, ⁠The Quiet Wins⁠.

00:00 Podcast Intro

00:47 Guest Intro

01:28 Local Banter Catch Up

03:07 Mercury Direct Updates

04:27 Back To Full Time

05:00 How We Met

07:47 Origin Story Germany

10:38 Meta Job And Strategy

15:18 Business Evolution Burnout

20:29 Community Over Algorithms

23:57 Choosing Stability Now

25:41 Evolving Past Identity

26:43 Autonomy Over Micromanaging

28:59 Commute Reality Check

31:54 Office Life After COVID

33:50 Rethinking Career Loyalty

36:22 What’s Next Careerwise

38:42 Know Yourself First

40:54 Slow Down and Reflect

42:53 Where to Find Christina

44:15 Duchess Era Goodbye

45:30 Episode Wrap and Outro

In this mini-episode of “Good Ideas + Bad Decisions,” Kat and Ellen catch up on extreme summer weather and shifts in working life. Kat shares updates on Benchwork's shop build-out, including new equipment, improved organization, and the realities of investing in a permanent workspace. Ellen discusses summer childcare, basement renovation plans, and potential business changes to better align work with family life. They also answer a community question on marketing, sharing how referrals, LinkedIn, newsletters, Google Business updates, and a current website help support mostly word-of-mouth growth.

Don't forget to⁠ submit your business questions⁠ for future episodes! 

Kat is the Founder of kat&co, a Creative Operations Consultant, and the Co-Owner and Director of Operations at Benchwork Fabrication. She helps interior designers and creatives turn ideas into streamlined, sustainable businesses. With a background in psychology and deep experience in creative business operations, she’s known for navigating the intersection of creativity and systems with both strategy and empathy. Join her newsletter, The kat&co Download.

Ellen Hockley is a three-time entrepreneur, small business consultant, community builder, and the founder of Ellen Hockley Consulting and SAGE Women. She guides female founders to build intuitive, values-driven businesses aligned with the life they want for themselves and their families. Join her Substack newsletter, ⁠The Quiet Wins⁠.

In this episode of 'Good Ideas + Bad Decisions,' hosts Kat and Ellen talk to Callie Exas, a women's health registered dietitian and personal trainer supporting women through hormone health, burnout, and strength training, especially from their early 30s into perimenopause and menopause. Callie shares her path from NYC advertising and teaching spin to earning nutrition degrees, RD licensure, and building a PCOS-informed women's health practice. She discusses shifting diet culture to flexibility over restriction, busting fasting and keto myths, and ditching all-or-nothing movement mindsets, plus her tiered business model spanning insurance-based counseling, labs, glucose monitoring, and personal training.

Callie Exas is a registered dietitian nutritionist and fitness expert specializing in women's health and wellbeing. Her own struggles with burnout and body image shaped her core belief: you can't hate your way into a body you love. Since founding her practice in 2018, she's guided clients through a holistic, individualized approach to wellness built on four pillars: sleep, stress, physical activity, and nutrition, all grounded in science and mindful eating. Having navigated her own major life changes, including becoming a mother of two, Callie is passionate about helping clients embrace self-care as an active practice and take ownership of their long-term health.  

Kat is the Founder of kat&co, a Creative Operations Consultant, and the Co-Owner and Director of Operations at Benchwork Fabrication. She helps interior designers and creatives turn ideas into streamlined, sustainable businesses. With a background in psychology and deep experience in creative business operations, she’s known for navigating the intersection of creativity and systems with both strategy and empathy. Join her newsletter, The kat&co Download.

Ellen Hockley is a three-time entrepreneur, small business consultant, community builder, and the founder of Ellen Hockley Consulting and SAGE Women. She guides female founders to build intuitive, values-driven businesses aligned with the life they want for themselves and their families. Join her Substack newsletter, ⁠The Quiet Wins⁠.  

00:00 Podcast Intro
01:12 Meet Callie
02:16 Boxing And Friendship
04:41 Callie’s Work
08:57 Nonlinear Career Path
14:36 Diet Culture Reframe
18:20 Teaching Body Trust
23:00 All Or Nothing Mindset
31:20 Business Model Breakdown
37:57 Stress Boundaries Health
41:10 Final Advice And Wrap

In this mini-episode of "Good Ideas + Bad Decisions," Kat and Ellen catch up about summer and how it's affecting their lives and businesses. Kat shares news of adopting a senior rescue dog to keep her older dog company, along with the quirks of helping a new pet settle in. Ellen reflects on a hectic start to summer with childcare transitions and shifting routines. They close by discussing how the summer season shapes their businesses, from scheduling around camp hours to planning travel and prioritizing rest. 

Don't forget to⁠ submit your business questions⁠ for future episodes! 

Kat is the Founder of kat&co, a Creative Operations Consultant, and the Co-Owner and Director of Operations at Benchwork Fabrication. She helps interior designers and creatives turn ideas into streamlined, sustainable businesses. With a background in psychology and deep experience in creative business operations, she’s known for navigating the intersection of creativity and systems with both strategy and empathy. Join her newsletter, The kat&co Download.

Ellen Hockley is a three-time entrepreneur, small business consultant, community builder, and the founder of Ellen Hockley Consulting and SAGE Women. She guides female founders to build intuitive, values-driven businesses aligned with the life they want for themselves and their families. Join her Substack newsletter, ⁠The Quiet Wins⁠.

In this episode of 'Good Ideas + Bad Decisions,' Kat and Ellen talk to Dayna DeStefano, an entrepreneur who has launched and sunset multiple ventures since leaving corporate product leadership in 2019. Dayna shares how that winding path led her to co-own her husband's family commercial cleaning business and now spearhead an acquisition strategy through CleanCo Holdings, buying up complementary building service businesses and integrating them with centralized operations and data. She also offers her advice to founders: design your career around your own blueprint, stay simple and focused, and act on what you feel called to do. 

Dayna DeStefano has spent nearly 20 years building brands and businesses, from serving as VP of Product at a digital media company acquired by Gary Vaynerchuk to founding multiple ventures, including a branding agency, a consulting company, and a tech literacy media company for women. Today, she splits her time between advising select founders and small business owners on go-to-market strategy and AI implementation, co-owning a portfolio of commercial building services businesses with her husband, and building The Business of Energy, where she writes about using energy as a navigation system for life and work. 

Kat is the Founder of kat&co, a Creative Operations Consultant, and the Co-Owner and Director of Operations at Benchwork Fabrication. She helps interior designers and creatives turn ideas into streamlined, sustainable businesses. With a background in psychology and deep experience in creative business operations, she’s known for navigating the intersection of creativity and systems with both strategy and empathy. Join her newsletter, The kat&co Download.

Ellen Hockley is a three-time entrepreneur, small business consultant, community builder, and the founder of Ellen Hockley Consulting and SAGE Women. She guides female founders to build intuitive, values-driven businesses aligned with the life they want for themselves and their families. Join her Substack newsletter, ⁠The Quiet Wins⁠.

00:00 Podcast Welcome

01:01 Meet Dayna

02:35 Entrepreneur Origin Story

03:11 Agency Success and Burnout

03:44 Web3 Experiment Unblocked

04:43 Co-Founder and New Baby Pivot

05:36 Boring Business Big Money

06:48 AI for Small Business Ops

08:20 Working With Your Spouse

10:52 Commercial Cleaning Niches

12:19 Recession Proof Lessons

13:05 Rinse and Repeat Expansion

14:47 Scaling Local vs National

17:35 Growth Options Ahead

18:14 Roll Up Strategy Focus

19:47 Boomer Seller Deals

23:54 Integrating Acquisitions

28:24 Tech Stack And AI Data

32:02 Selling Data To Robotics

35:33 What Drives Dayna

41:33 Parting Wisdom And Future

44:12 Where To Find Dayna

45:23 Episode Wrap Up

In this mini-episode of ‘Good Ideas + Bad Decisions,’ Kat and Ellen discuss how small-town dynamics can intensify business relationships and conflicts. Ellen shares a conflict in her business community and she and Kat conclude that Ellen should focus on showing up authentically rather than dwelling on the conflict. Kat also talks about launching her fabrication company Benchwork with two former coworkers and anticipating a difficult reaction from their previous boss, while the episode briefly touches on automation services and Ellen's email and domain forwarding issues. 

Don't forget to⁠ submit your business questions⁠ for future episodes! 

Kat is the Founder of kat&co, a Creative Operations Consultant, and the Co-Owner and Director of Operations at Benchwork Fabrication. She helps interior designers and creatives turn ideas into streamlined, sustainable businesses. With a background in psychology and deep experience in creative business operations, she’s known for navigating the intersection of creativity and systems with both strategy and empathy. Join her newsletter, The kat&co Download.

Ellen Hockley is a three-time entrepreneur, small business consultant, community builder, and the founder of Ellen Hockley Consulting and SAGE Women. She guides female founders to build intuitive, values-driven businesses aligned with the life they want for themselves and their families. Join her Substack newsletter, ⁠The Quiet Wins⁠.

In this episode of 'Good Ideas + Bad Decisions,' hosts Kat and Ellen talk to Emily Bissen, founder of Blue Heron Business Partners, whose work sits at the intersection of business opportunity strategy and human design. Emily, a self-described 4/1 manifesting generator, explains how discovering her own human design gave language to skills she'd always had: reading people, spotting opportunities, and making the right connections at the right time.

The conversation gets into the tension between prescribed entrepreneurial playbooks and trusting a more personalized approach, including the permission it takes to set boundaries, walk away from misaligned work, and build a business around what actually matters.

Emily Bissen is a Business Opportunity Strategist and Super Connector who helps talented, driven business owners stop spinning their wheels and start moving. Using each client's unique Human Design, she creates strategies built for how they're wired rather than forcing someone else's playbook.

Find Emily on LinkedIn or visit her at blueheronbusinesspartners.com.

Kat is the Founder of kat&co, a Creative Operations Consultant, and the Co-Owner and Director of Operations at Benchwork Fabrication. She helps interior designers and creatives turn ideas into streamlined, sustainable businesses. With a background in psychology and deep experience in creative business operations, she’s known for navigating the intersection of creativity and systems with both strategy and empathy. Join her newsletter, The kat&co Download.

Ellen Hockley is a three-time entrepreneur, small business consultant, community builder, and the founder of Ellen Hockley Consulting and SAGE Women. She guides female founders to build intuitive, values-driven businesses aligned with the life they want for themselves and their families. Join her Substack newsletter, ⁠The Quiet Wins⁠.

00:00 Podcast Welcome
01:22 Meet Emily Beeson
02:00 Human Design Basics
04:25 Retreat Spark Story
05:39 Using Design With Clients
08:37 Starting Her Business
11:05 Ditching Others Playbooks
14:25 Offers And Containers
18:04 Time Freedom With Kids
20:28 Teachers To Entrepreneurs
22:53 Ditching the Playbook
23:48 Permission to Choose
26:20 Boundaries and Availability
28:28 Permission to Quit
29:01 Human Design Deep Dive
30:29 Energy and Grounding
34:50 Decision Making Styles
40:35 Oldest Daughter Patterns
42:56 Building a Support Village
44:25 Get Curious Closing
46:00 Where to Find Emily
46:45 Podcast Sign Off

In this mini-episode of 'Good Ideas + Bad Decisions,' Kat and Ellen discuss a book, "This Story Might Save Your Life," that mirrors their own podcast experience, then debate whether audiobooks count as reading (spoiler: Kat and Ellen agree that they do). They also explore how to make networking feel less awkward through clear purpose, low barriers, casual formats, and community containers where members can genuinely support one another.

Don't forget to⁠⁠ submit your business questions⁠⁠ for future episodes! 

Kat is the Founder of ⁠kat&co⁠, a Creative Operations Consultant, and the Co-Owner and Director of Operations at ⁠Benchwork Fabrication⁠. She helps interior designers and creatives turn ideas into streamlined, sustainable businesses. With a background in psychology and deep experience in creative business operations, she’s known for navigating the intersection of creativity and systems with both strategy and empathy. Join her newsletter, ⁠The kat&co Download⁠.

Ellen Hockley is a three-time entrepreneur, small business consultant, community builder, and the founder of ⁠Ellen Hockley Consulting⁠ and ⁠SAGE Women⁠. She guides female founders to build intuitive, values-driven businesses aligned with the life they want for themselves and their families. Join her Substack newsletter,⁠ ⁠The Quiet Wins⁠⁠.