Katie Taylor knew right away that she needed to surround herself with the right people if her business, Untold Content, was going to survive the early stages of growth – as her family grew, too. We sat down with Katie at Iris Book Cafe in O.T.R. not long after the start of the school year to talk about how she built her team, how she finds the right fit, and how they’ve grown together over the past three years.

There is no single definition of an entrepreneur or the obstacles they face. As part of our year-long series sponsored by Main Street Ventures, our community chose 12 of the biggest obstacles female-identifying entrepreneurs face, and we found 12 women who spend their days conquering them. Explore the whole series here.

Interview by Judy Zitnik. Photography by Chelsie Walter.

What’s your elevator pitch?

Untold Content is a writing consultancy. We do innovation storytelling. The thing that makes us different is our focus on writing, exclusively. The content we're creating is at a pretty complex level around four industries: science, tech, medicine, and human impact. So our focus is a lot on research- and evidence-based content. And we're working with experts in companies or in government who understand their subject matter really thoroughly and intensely, but can't always look up from that subject matter to communicate it well. We partner with those subject matter experts, and support them in elevating their voices by being able to translate their insights for other audiences.

Tell me about your team.

Talk about the right people! My team has evolved over the years. At this moment, my team is a seven-person team [pauses, laughs, and counts to self], including myself. And we hired three of those team members this year. All of those first team members have been with us since the beginning, up until three months ago when we brought on my husband, Steven, as chief operating officer. My team is perceptive, and collaborative, and incredibly talented.

When in your entrepreneurial journey did you add employees? How long were you solo?

So let me go back. In 2013, I started consulting for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs [V.A.] while I was finishing up my Ph.D. in rhetoric and composition at Purdue University. I was studying technical writing, and as I was writing a major book project, I got an opportunity to be a tech writer for the V.A. on contract. So I pursued that, and within a year the opportunities continued to grow and grow as the people I was working with saw that, “Hey, this writer can do far more than just edit stuff. She's not just a proofreader. She can be a content strategist. She can help us determine which pieces, which formats we should use to articulate different solutions that we've created.”

Becoming a higher-level strategist on those teams was the thing that enabled me to scale. Within a year, I was hiring contractors and finishing up my Ph.D., but I knew that I could only do so much by myself. It would always and forever be the potential of building into other people that was going to make the business scale and make it successful and make me happy, because I'm a very social person, too. I knew I didn't want to be closed away just writing by myself my whole life.

It's not only about bringing in people who identify as writers; it's about bringing in people who identify as storytellers.

Then, I actually lost my first big client three months after quitting my job as a professor. It was pretty much 90% of my business at that time. My revenue was gone. I was fortunate to have my life partner alongside me who was still making money. He said, “You have 3 months,” and I said, “I need 6.” And at that point, I bootstrapped and worked really hard and thought, my next hire is not going to be a contractor. I need a team. I need people who are as committed to this as I am.

What went into making that decision? That’s quite a commitment on your part.

I think that both are really good systems. But I didn't want it to be all contractors. I knew that in terms of the commitment to the mission and in terms of the revenue model for us that the goal was to hire. I had continued to diversify our portfolio of clients and I was getting more clients, and I did that by looking local. Because with the V.A., that was a national client, and it was really just an infrastructure change that made that contract go away. It wasn't about, you know, our time running up, or the quality of the work or anything. It was just red tape, and it was really frustrating.

When I went aggressively toward that goal, that’s when my mindset changed. I knew the vision that came into my mind of a strong team, maybe 12 to 15 people over 5 years. So we're about halfway there at this point.

When you do hire, how do you find a good fit?

At the stage that Untold exists currently, we have a really strong core team. For us, it's equal parts talent and culture. Honestly, the kind of writing that we're doing, like I mentioned, is very complex. It's scientific; it’s technical; it’s medical. A lot of our projects have to do with publishing peer reviewed journal articles, or writing white papers, or delivering a thought piece for a C-suite leader who needs to be at the forefront of the industry. Most of the writers on our team have graduate-level degrees: masters or Ph.D. levels in English. We have two Ph.D. chemists on our team, too. And so in that way, it's not only about bringing in people who identify as writers; it's about bringing in people who identify as storytellers, and if their talent lies in that translation of insight into word or design, that's what we look for.

And then the cultural fit has a lot to do with it. Do you align with our mission, which is, “To impact the world through words for good”? Are you passionate about not just research and data, but about actually making that understandable for other people? Because it's easy to get buried in the nuance and only talk to other people who understand your language and your unique field or discipline. If you're committed and passionate about that act of moving thoughts out into the world, and making sure they're understood – that's the kind of culture that we're trying to build.

It's also very collaborative. I can usually tell if someone's not going to be the right fit. Sometimes it looks like being too much of a “me” person and not enough of a team-oriented person. If you're going to be in the core team, you need to love this work.

Do you keep office hours? Do you have office space?

So we changed it up. Over the years, I've always been committed to building into whatever environment my team needs to accomplish their best work. If you need to be together, let's be together. If you need to be alone, let’s make sure that there's flexibility for that. If you need to go be with your kids, take them to the doctor, or take them to dance class in the morning and bring them back home and then work a little more at night, do that. We have an open P.T.O. policy; it's completely flexible; we don't track it. We all pitch in and help and communicate with each other when someone wants to take time off.

At this point, we mostly work virtually. Last year, we had an office space, and we just didn't use it all that much. It was good at times; it really helped build, I think, a strong camaraderie among us when we did use it. But life circumstances changed, like one of our employees moved to Akron, and I was pregnant.

There are certain habits that I instill in our regular workflows. Every month we meet for strategic planning. Every quarter we have a talent show where everybody shares some work that they're really proud of from that quarter. Every Tuesday and Friday, we have huddles – those are virtual; everybody's calling in. So yeah, we have habits of checking in; we have systems for doing that. But most of the work is, “Let's call a meeting when we need it; let’s build a sprint when we need it; let's work independently when we need it.”

One thing that’s difficult for many entrepreneurs is letting go. How did you initially approach that? How do you continue to let go as you build and scale?

From a mindset perspective, everything you do as a CEO or a leader needs to be about creating abundance. And ideally, from a logistical standpoint, everything you do needs to be scalable. And it's actually kind of fun, if you can start to break down and analyze the tasks and responsibilities that are on your plate or the talents that you bring to the table. If you can start to analyze those things and really gain clarity on what you're able to scale, that gives you the ability to multiply your time, but also build into people and create more joy and significance in your life.

You know, every time I get that sense of fear that, “Oh no, what would happen if I don't do this myself?” I try to stop and understand where it's coming from, and ask really good questions about, “Why don’t I trust that person; what's going on with this particular situation? Is this fear a fear that should be heard and listened to, or something that should be ignored? Should I suspend my disbelief for a bit until it gets to a more developed stage, and then assess whether it's the right choice?”

If we're not failing, then we weren't trying really hard at a new thing.

I guess what I'm saying is that fear is real around giving up your baby – like letting other people hold your baby [laughs]. It's real that you fear that they will drop it. But most of the time when you let someone hold your baby, you see the joy on their face, and you feel like you're connected to something bigger than yourself, and that you have somehow created this little being that's giving joy to other people. Okay, it's cheesy, I guess. But I have three kids.

Does it get easier? To let go?

Oh yeah, it does get easier. And now what I'm finding is my role has changed to where I'm not the person who is struggling with giving up responsibilities. I'm the person who's coaching the people who need to give up and think about their time this way. So for my core team, we will not scale this business if it only relies on how brilliant and awesome our seven people are. Right? Like, every person in my core team needs to be able to think about how to take their talents and build into others. And that doesn't come naturally to some. If you think, “Oh, well, if someone else does this, is that taking away from my work and what I bring?”

But what I've tried to be coaching a lot of my staff on lately is, “It's a sign of excellence that you have the opportunity to scale yourself.”

How do you check in with your team to make sure you’re all heading down the same path and that things are working for everyone?

So I mentioned our huddles, which was the best practice that sort of emerged out of Lean Six Sigma philosophies. It’s our own strategic imperative, internally – for 15 minutes, twice a week, we are all present. And we're asking, “What are you working on? What barriers are you experiencing? And what do you need?” We address those three questions twice a week, in conversation with each other. Every quarter, we have one-on-ones as well. And I love those. Those are critical if you want to really make sure that there's not a meeting happening after the meeting, or you want to make sure that you're not missing something really big.

Some of our struggle has been that we're doing so much. Huddles are more like looking down at exactly what we have to do right now to make things work. But having one-on-ones, and having the quarterly talent show, and having monthly strategic planning meetings and a bi-annual retreat, those are operationally the ways that we look up and make sure that we know where we're headed next.

We're a consulting firm, so we're very time-oriented. We've developed a pretty sophisticated system for planning our time each month. We all have sort of a target percent billable that we're reaching. If one person is really high, then we're trying to ask why and move things around and get more resources to that person.

I think giving feedback in the moment that something happens is more powerful than waiting until a quarterly one-on-one. We're trying as much as possible to make a culture where people feel comfortable speaking up and saying, “I'm going to challenge that,” or, “Have you thought about this?” And one way that we do that is to try really hard to remind ourselves not to take things personally too much and not associate yourself with the idea. If you associate yourself with the idea and it fails, then you feel like you are a failure. If we're not failing, then we weren't trying really hard at a new thing. So even though it sucks, and it doesn't feel good, we're working more on celebrating failure.

I've also been a fierce advocate for creating a work environment that works hard and strives but does not work more than eight hours in a day. And especially with this kind of work, it's heavy work; it's complex work. There might be a day where you had to give an incredible amount of focus literally for eight or nine hours. I don't expect you to be able to do that the second day. I wouldn't expect that of myself.

So as much as we can foster a happy, joyful workplace where people are able to live their lives and be flexible, I think that fosters better outcomes in terms of what we're producing and how we feel about our work and our likelihood of wanting to be here.

You’re more than just a CEO How do you more broadly define “surrounding yourself with the right team”?

There are certain mentors in my life – in terms of my personal growth, or my professional growth outside of the company – who I just love and cherish and turn to again and again. One of those people is an English professor I had when I was an undergrad, and I still turn to her to talk about life challenges and balance. I was texting her as back-to-school was starting with my little ones who are both starting preschool like, “I can't believe preschool’s here. I can't believe that in one year, my oldest will be in kindergarten. I feel like everything's moving in hyper-speed. And I can't get the time back. What do I do? How do I not back down from the opportunity that this business is providing? And how do I also not miss a second?”

And she responded with, “Katie, one meal, one play date, and one conversation can change your relationship.”

And I just thought that was exactly what I needed to hear. And her point was right: It's not about quantity; it's about quality, and you build into both. And also: Be creative about your environment. I've been more proactively trying to redesign some of my work mornings and move things around a little bit so that I can try to soak in each of those moments.

So much of my measure of success is: Will my kids be inspired by the work that I've done?

I also have some business mentors that I turn to through the SCORE program, and they're free, and they're great. I actually had a misfit once, in terms of surrounding yourself with the right people. There was a woman who I met probably two years ago, and she was not the right fit for me. She made me cry. I was just completely stopped. So just because you've had that kind of feedback from one person, maybe don't listen to it. Yeah, if you're having that feedback from everyone you pitch your awesome, risky idea to, maybe you should listen. But if it’s one person, don't let that stop you.

Surround yourself with the right people: the people who get it, who believe. And that's been a huge thing in terms of my team, too. It was not until I hired my husband that I hired someone who I thought would push back on me. My husband, I knew: “I'm gonna hire him; he's gonna push back and he's gonna challenge my decisions.” But I intentionally did not hire someone like him until now.

Along this journey, how have you personally measured success?

Personally, this is a really complex one. I don't know whether to say things about my personal life or about the success of the company. I mean, it's all of it. Right?

These are not in any given order:

Do our clients want to work with us again? Is my team fulfilled? Is this significant work to them – not just well-paying, but challenging work they can be really proud of? Is this the kind of work that they would like to define their life? That's kind of high stakes, but that's how I’ve measured success, personally.

We had one-on-ones last week, and there were tears of gratitude for getting to do this type of work, and not thinking that it could exist. And in those moments, that's where I feel the most successful. We have created something that feels unique. All of us have been trained to teach or be in big companies doing this kind of work. But we're living in a space that none of us had dreamt existed; we dreamt it into existence, and we did it together. And it's worth it and it is meaningful.

Especially at a time where the public, in general, distrusts experts, and is confused by science, and is intimidated by politicians, and is over it and where the majority of people are turning toward their own communities and their own sense of belonging over facts. Because it's really hard to change the mindsets of the people around you or how you grew up, and that part of our work, to me, has never been about how good you can edit something, or the technical part of whether you're a really strong writer. To me, it's always been if we can keep that North Star of helping bring knowledge into the light, make it accessible, help people understand it, help people activate and engage with it, help it get more funding. Whatever it takes to make knowledge more widely accepted, and understood, and inspire more people to choose those paths and choose the truth, then that's always been the North Star.

And to wrap it up, tell me about an influential woman in your life.

A woman who inspires me, every hour of the day: my mom. She surrounds herself with family. And I think so much of my measure of success is: Will my kids be inspired by the work that I've done? She's taught me it's all about the closest relationships you can build, committing to those and building into them. So I think a lot of her view of the world is translated into how I built this team. And I've pretty much not accepted any kind of hiring that didn't feel like family.

She has an incredible work ethic. She was an ultrasound technician. She just retired earlier this year. And she got up every day at 5a.m. and went out the door in the dark and was home by 2:30 or 3:30p.m. She was fully present with us when she was with us, and perhaps that's the most inspiring part of who she is. But it translated into my life, probably to a crazy extreme, where I have a commitment to zooming in as deeply as possible wherever I'm at, and then lifting that back up and zooming into the next thing that I'm in, whether that's with my kids or on a client project or with a team member or taking a minute to myself. Yeah, there's a level of being present and being deeply committed. So hopefully I'll surround them – my family and my team – with that kind of mindset.

There is no single definition of an entrepreneur. Check out our year-long series, "This Is Entrepreneurship." Sponsored by Main Street Ventures.

This Is Entrepreneurship: Katie Taylor on Building the Right Team