Behind the Business: Embedding care in a business model with Kate Tyson of Wanderwell
“It's not yes to everything all the time, but building a system that allows me to be really generous.”
This is the first in a new series of Behind the Business Q&As featuring creative business owners. Through these interviews, we’ll pull back the curtain for you on what it’s like to run a small business for more than just money.
I’m gathering stories from solopreneurs, business owners and freelancers who are driven by creativity, who center care in their work, who are working to build a more just economy. People who use their work to leave the world a little better than they found it — and there’s no better person to kick us off than Kate Tyson! Kate was the first person I saw demonstrate practically how to build the kind of creative business I’d dreamed of as a young millennial without giving into the greed and hustle usually associated with entrepreneurship. Now she’s helping other business owners do the same through her consultancy, Wanderwell. Learn how she’s doing it in our inaugural Behind the Business Q&A :)
Name: Kate Tyson
Business: Wanderwell
About the business:
We advise and provide financial services for small businesses, helping leaders and owners to care for themselves and their teams, grow and build resilient systems, and navigate the chaos of our times.
Business details
Based in: I live in northern Vermont, we have employees and clients all over the country
Year started: 2012
Profit structure: Traditional for-profit
Legal structure: LLC taxed as an S-Corp
Who works in this business? Me and two W-2 employees
Income contribution: Full-time job
Hours worked per week: 30
Is your business profitable? Yes
Your experience doing this work
Have you run any other businesses in the past?
Yes, though more scrappy freelance-type practices. I had one full time job just out of college for a couple of years, quit that job and moved to India for a couple years, and that was that.
Why did you start this business?
Way way back at the beginning, it was something of a side adventure and one piece of a multi-faceted livelihood — in other words: kind of an accident. I have an art degree, and never in a million years would have imagined myself as a “business consultant,” much less the owner of an accounting practice. I met my former business partner in a coffee shop, we started working on some projects together, and it evolved over time from there. We always grounded in a queer, very eccentric and relationship-driven ethos, and I can say I have stayed with that heart all these years, even though the business looks very different now.
What surprised you most about starting a business?
How creative, artful and joyful business can be. A client recently shared, “You gave me the space to embed poetics and creativity as important parts of my business”... What an amazing thing to hear, first of all, but also, how astonishing that this can be true and something I get to do for my job!
What are some of the challenges you faced starting your business (and how did you overcome them)?
The biggest challenge for me was in figuring out my relationship to employing and managing people — it took me a long time to accept and realize how much I dislike and am not suited to managing a large team. At one point I had a much larger team, and was miserable. Embracing a tiny team and the constraint of minimal management, that was a huge turning point (and, ultimately led to a much more profitable business). Now “no more employees” is one of the creative constraints for the business — this year I spent some time toying with the idea of having an executive assistant again, and ultimately decided to figure out how to ease the admin on my plate instead of hiring another person.
What’s the most rewarding thing about the work you do?
Two things: First, my insatiable curiosity will always be fed. I learn new things everyday, even after seeing the insides of hundreds of businesses. Second, witnessing my advisory clients shift and grow in their leadership — it’s such a privilege. Like any personal transformation, they don’t always see it themselves, but being able to say “six months ago, you would have handled this situation very differently” is one of the best parts of my job.
In what ways do you take care of people in your business?
Care is a huge value throughout our whole ecosystem. What I’ve realized is the most important thing for embedding care in a system is to have a strong foundation and good boundaries — so, we’re discerning about client fit, our pricing matches our expertise and the high level at which we work (i.e., we’re not cheap). These things allow space for generosity in a way that just trying to be “accessible” often does not. In community, for me it’s always been important to maintain space for the small, scrappy and punk — that looks like keeping a couple of sliding scale appointments a month, and the luxury of scheduling calls with people I know aren’t at a stage to engage our services, but who I can help anyway. But again: boundaries! It’s not yes to everything all the time, but building a system that allows me to be really generous.
On a team level, we have a very autonomous and flexible work culture; we’ve long had working parents on our team, and we are all artists with other interests outside of work. We have a profit share system, and largely compensation is tied to revenue, so unlike many accounting outfits, the team isn’t financially penalized for being more efficient or better at their jobs.
For clients, we are really rigorous about communication, which in itself is a kind of care. Because we’re intentionally small with a limited number of clients at any one time, we can also really attune to different styles, particularly around our finance work, and work with clients to find communication and work styles that mutually work. Often folks are money avoidant! We work with diverse business owners with diverse brains. And so we have to get creative in partnering on their books, because we can’t do their work without them.
Learn more about this business
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Thanks so much for the excellent questions Dana! Appreciate you!