Tell us a little about yourself?
I’m Kate Baldwin, founder and MD of The Flywheelers. I have a decade’s experience working in comms at some of the UK’s leading tech agencies with some of the hottest scaleups, like Darktrace and Onfido, and some of the technology industry’s biggest names, like VMware and Citrix.
And now I’m excited to launch The Flywheelers to help ambitious tech startups and scaleups build real momentum against their business and marketing priorities.
When I’m not at work, you’ll find me discovering new places to eat in Brixton (recommendations always welcome) or being dragged into doing DIY by my far-more-handy-than-me husband, Dan.
Who are The Flywheelers?
The Flywheelers is launching to help tech startups and scaleups better use comms to accelerate their momentum – and in turn, their growth and their value.
What does this mean in practice? It’s about building comms strategies that help them achieve their business and marketing priorities, whether that’s building better brand awareness or establishing category ownership. With our integrated offering – delivered by our own team and with support from a network of trusted, specialist partners – we design and deliver programmes that we know will have a real impact.
And because priorities change, we offer a flexible subscription model. If a better combination of services will have a bigger impact against that goal, we flex to deliver them. This way our clients can be confident they are always getting the best return on their comms investment.
What inspired you to set up your own agency?
It’s been my dream to start my own agency for a long time. And working with some great startups and scaleups, I came to realise that the traditional comms agency model just doesn’t work for them. These ambitious, high-growth businesses need a partner that has that same hunger, flexibility and speed as they do. And that is why I am launching The Flywheelers.
And with startups and scaleups now being warned to ‘plan for the worst’ over the impending recession, while still needing to show the continuous revenue growth essential for securing future investment, I genuinely believe that our new approach is coming just at the right time. The need for marketing and comms to fuel the sales funnel isn’t going away. But it will be more important than ever for our work to directly support the business’s priorities.
What work are you most proud of?
It has to be launching The Data Literacy Project with data leader, Qlik. At Brands2Life, we devised a bold and brave global communications strategy to position Qlik as the leading voice on data literacy. We conceived and launched a cross-industry collaboration that would scale its influence and reach on the topic – The Data Literacy Project – alongside big names, including Accenture, Cognizant and Experian. We developed the brand, website and campaign video. And worked with a Wharton School professor and IHS Markit to develop the Data Literacy Index, which quantified the commercial value of data literacy for the first time. We had a massive global launch. Our spokespeople were featured in CNBC, Forbes, the Guardian, WIRED and more. But it also made a real-world impact by helping many people upskill in this key area. Since the launch, tens of thousands of users have completed the site’s data literacy assessment and e-learnings courses.
It was a mammoth but absolutely amazing campaign. To this day, I’m so grateful to have worked with such an amazing team to deliver it and am proud of what we achieved.
And the fact that we picked up four awards at the Drum Marketing Awards, PR Week Global Awards, the SABRE Awards, and the B2B Marketing awards. Well, that just makes it all the sweeter!
What three things are you most excited about?
The first has to be growing our awesome team. It’s already a lot of fun and it’s only going to get more fun the bigger we get.
I am also looking forward to taking a startup all the way through to IPO. It’s awesome being a partner on that journey – and I want to be in it for the long haul!
And last but certainly not least, it will be winning our first campaign award. I have no doubt that our work will speak for itself, but I want to start filling our clients’ shelves with trophies. So, start making space now…
