Building a “Bonfire with soul” Company
"There's an art and heart and soul to business."
- Duke Stump.
What if you had the chance to upend business as usual?
"If you are finally courageous enough to pursue hiring and growing a team, what kind of company would you want to build? What would be your guiding principles?"
This was the natural next question that emerged after our I decided we needed to grow.
While for many a question like this might have presented as just another layer of things to sit down and figure out--maybe take months or years to define in a nebulous, untethered way--in 2020, I was lucky enough to have fallen into the amazing direction and principles of Duke Stump's Bonfire with Soul.
These principles are ones I have been returning to and growing in my understanding of for over 3 years now, and it dawned on me I had the opportunity to build a team from the ground up-- entirely around the Bonfire with Soul principles.
What is more, in these 3 years of knowing Duke, I have become even more certain of the deeply generous spirit and champion of humans behind these principles.
Defined by 12 principles for "optimistic rebels" who are "done with business as usual," these ways of thinking not only have deepened my understanding of what it means to be a brand, but what it means to be a human--and have a soul--as it relates to business.
That is essential to how we operate as we are often told we turn brands from 2D into the 3D, walking, talking, human brand.
So what will be evolve this company around?
<<Bonfire's Principles>>
Product is a Mirror to Your Soul
Widen the Lens
Live Empathy
It Begins Inside
The Beauty of Not Knowing
Soil is Life
Inspiration v. Desperation
Do Nothing
See. Feel. Trust.
Honesty v. Perfection
Trust Talent
Dare to Suck
As I look ahead to what kind of company we want to have and how I want to pass along to those who work with me how I think about business--it is vastly different from the traditional landscape. It is going to take work and time to reorient the way we all think as it relates to business.
In order to instill these guiding themes into both our team and our clients, we will be unpacking one of these principles a month for the next year. Sharing our top insights from Duke's perspective, as well as how we see the principle playing out in the way we work with and for our clients.
Our first drop, Product is a Mirror to Your Soul, is fundamental to the way we think-- that every touch point matters.
Excited to kick these off next week, and in a year, to have deepened our collective understanding of what it means to stand out in a world of same, forging our own path around these deeply human principles.