One year of Thread Studio 🥂 + my ChatGPT logo retiring!
👋 Welcome back, aspiring corporate escapees, and entrepreneurs!
To be completely honest... I never once imagined I'd be running my own business.
A year ago I signed the LLC paperwork for Thread Studio and my first client contract the same day. If you'd told the version of me sitting at a Fortune 100 Chief of Staff office a few months earlier that this was what I'd be doing twelve months later, I would've laughed and gotten back to the President's talking points for the upcoming all hands. Founder energy was not on the bingo card!
Turns out a layoff and 60 days of quiet can rearrange your whole life. One client call did the rest, and a year of pinch me moments followed. With a brand strategy practice, a community, a body of work I'm genuinely proud of, and the kind of fun I forgot was possible at work.
For the past year, my chatGTP logo looked like this:
ChatGTP Logo V1
Today, after helping leaders get clear on their own story and getting a whole lot clearer on mine, it looks like this:
Thread Studio Logo Designed by Studio Morii
Built with Jess at Studio Morii from the vision I'd been carrying since day one: Mexican artisan craft meets strategic storytelling, where every detail carries meaning. Hecho con intención, all the way through.
Here's the thing, and it's the same thing I tell every client now: don't spend the money on a beautiful logo and a polished website before you've worked with real clients and gotten genuinely clear on the work you want to be known for. The visuals can't carry a foundation that isn't there yet. Build the cohesive story first. Pressure test it on real people. Find the language that finally sounds like you. Then invest in the visual identity, because by that point you'll know exactly what you're asking it to hold.
A ChatGPT logo and a year of intentional client work was the right order for me. Tune in for the full brand reveal tomorrow with a special edition Cafecito Wednesday.
Pull up a chair, amig@s. This issue is for celebration, a little bit of teaching, and a real invitation at the end.
-Lu
💌 The clients are the whole story
If you ask me what I'm most proud of from this first anniversary, it isn't the revenue, the moments on stages, or the billboard in Times Square (yes, that happened, and yes, I still cannot quite believe it). It's the leaders I've gotten to work with.
Roberta, who let me build the entire Novus Data Journeys brand from the ground up and trusted me with her vision before I had a website to point her toward. She truly was the inspiration to start my own business.
The corporate escapee who came to me after 20 years of corporate life trying to figure out who she was in this new season. Now leading confidence workshops.
The Big 4 data storyteller who handed me her brand foundation to rebuild from the inside out.
The coach whose brand had stopped matching the version of her she was becoming at year 6, and walked out with the positioning and voice that finally do.
The CPA who was sure a strategist outside of accounting couldn't possibly understand his world, and walked out with a service strategy and operational infrastructure that turned a practice he'd built into something repeatable and ready to scale.
That's the year. People trusted me with the thing that took them their whole career to build, and we made something stronger together.
Here's what Roberta said about year one of building Novus together:
Client Love
🧵 For the corporate escapees reading this
Welcome to the Corporate Escapee Club!
I call us corporate escapees because that's exactly what it is. We're not running away. You're walking out, on purpose, with everything you built inside those walls coming with you.
I know you're here, my friend. Some of you are planning the leap. Some are just curious. Some are happy where you are but watching this climate and wondering: if I had to leave tomorrow, would I be ready?
Just yesterday, an aspiring corporate escapee sent me this message:
"I want you to know, you've inspired me that if I get another layoff at [his company] (I've gotten multiple and got a job internally), I'm doing my own strategy/chief of staff services! And I've even started thinking of what that looks like so it's not from scratch. I share because people don't give kudos enough and I feel like you should know people see what you've done!"
That's the whole point of Thread Studio. Not just for the founders already out and building, but for the leaders still inside who want to know they have a thread to pull when they need it.
A few things I'd tell you, with a year of doing this on the other side of it:
Your personal brand is not optional anymore. Especially right now. Layoffs everywhere. AI shifting every job description in the building. Restructures hitting people who thought they were safe (hi, it's me!). The leaders landing on their feet are the ones whose name is already known for something specific outside the four walls of their company. That doesn't have to mean LinkedIn influencer energy. It means people in your industry can describe what you do without your title doing the explaining for you. Start now, build your thought leadership strategy while you still have the runway.
If you're thinking about leaping, start with what you love and what you're good at. This sounds simple, but most people skip it. They jump to logos and pricing before they've sat with the actual question. What's the work where time disappears? What do people keep coming to you for, even when it isn't your job? What did you used to love doing before your title told you to be more strategic about it? That intersection is the seed of your offer. Everything else gets built on top of it.
Then get clear on who you're really for. Not "anyone who needs help." Specifically: who is the person you can help better than anyone else in the room? What season are they in? What are they Googling at 11pm? Your audience isn't an abstract demographic. It's a real human, and the more clearly you can picture her, the easier everything else becomes.
💬 What working with me actually looks like
You know the feeling. Decades of expertise and you still fumble when someone asks what you do. Your website says one thing, your LinkedIn says something else, and none of it lands the way it should. You're working twice as hard for half the recognition you've earned.
Imagine the opposite. The right people recognize you immediately. Content that used to take all week starts flowing because there's a strategy behind it. Pricing matches the value of what you deliver. Premium opportunities show up without you ever having to chase them.
It always starts the same way. With The Thread Pull. 90 minutes together where we sit down with whatever's been swirling, the scattered ideas and the "is it me or is this actually working" feeling, and we name it. We diagnose what's tangled, what's costing you the right yes from the right opportunities, and what your real next stitch is. You walk away with a Thread Map, the clarity you came for, and a clear path forward, whether that's working with me on the deeper foundation or running with what we found together.
If you're ready to start pulling the thread... let's talk!
🎭 Step into the role your brand was made to play.
Your audience is the main character in the story of your brand. Find out how you lead them to a transformation.
🗓️ Upcoming Events
One year ago I had a vision and a whole lot of loose threads. What I didn't fully see coming was the community that would grow alongside it.
The clients who trusted me with their stories. The founders who showed up to workshops and said "that's exactly me." The people in this inbox who have been reading, responding, and building something of their own in the meantime.
This Thursday is my official Ribbon Cutting, and I want you in the room. Not just to celebrate Thread Studio turning one, but to celebrate what it means when a community of corporate escapees and founders bets on themselves and don't look back.
Come have champagne and pan dulce with me. Connect with other founders pouring their hearts into something that matters. And let's mark this moment together.
📅 Thursday, April 30 | 11:00AM - 12:00 PM CST 📍Working Moms of San Antonio, 11854 Wurzbach Rd
Hosted by the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
The Thread Pull: Live A personal brand workshop
📅 Tuesday, May 19 | 10:30AM CT / 11:30AM ET
Join me for a free virtual workshop where I'll walk through the same diagnostic framework I use with every Thread Studio client. We'll get into what makes a brand story actually land, why brilliant people still struggle to explain what they do, and how to start pulling your loose threads together so your story finally sounds like you.
Loose Threads to Your First Stitch
📅 Monday, June 15 | 11:00AM CT
📍Working Moms of San Antonio (In Person)
A hands on workshop for San Antonio women leaders carrying a personal brand idea, a business story, or a personal pivot that's been swirling without quite landing. We'll work with prompts, partner exercises, and worksheets you can take home, all designed to help you stop overthinking and finally make your first real stitch forward.
Details and registration coming soon!
🪡 The Stitch to Remember
You can't see your own brand clearly when you're inside it.
A scattered story isn't a content problem. It's a foundation one.
Don't wait for clarity to find you. Pull the thread.
One stitch at a time. 🧵
–Lu
