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November 21, 2025 | Edinburgh UK
It has certainly been a minute, and I’m thrilled to be back in your inbox with some exciting updates.
As I write this, the pub next door is putting up a gargantuan Christmas tree in their biergarten. It’s lovely and sparkly, but a stark reminder of how long I’ve been away. The pause, however, hasn’t been in vain.
In my last newsletter, I shared my plans for The Brandsider’s business model. Then I got to work, and quickly realized it was a bigger endeavor than initially thought — both in its potential and in the work required to launch it.
One week turned into four, my husband officially joined the team, and only now am I proud to be sharing the version of this product that actually deserves to exist. If you know anything about me, it’s that I’ll never ship something ‘good enough’; I’d always rather pause to build the right thing. And I’m so glad I did.
In today’s newsletter, I’ll be sharing:
The honest journey that got us to this product
Why I’m so proud of it
How you can work with us
It’s a juicy one, so let’s dive in.
Tamara
The growth unlock
My real breakthrough wasn’t developing the Flywheel of Belonging™ –
but in realizing its potential as an engine for compounding growth.
When I developed it in September, I saw the Flywheel as a helpful internal tool — a way to sharpen my insights, create better content, carve out a space in the market. I still thought I was building a media / newsletter company, so its potential was easy to overlook.
But once we started developing our product, something clicked. The flywheel wasn’t just a framework — it was the answer to what my consulting clients kept telling me:
“We’re doing so much, but nothing compounds.”
“Our marketing efforts feels scattered.”
“We want to scale, but have no idea what actually moves the needle.”
These teams thought they had a growth problem. What they actually had was a strategy problem — scattered positioning, no clear point of view, no cohesive world-building, and no way for insiders to broadcast belonging externally. The Flywheel gave them a tool to fix it.
This reframed everything. I realized the flywheel wasn’t a nice-to-have framework, it was an essential growth engine. But my early draft (shared here) wasn’t nearly rigorous enough to build a product around.
So I entered my Month of Research and Development*.
A month in the lab
I didn’t initially plan to disappear, but every day in the ‘lab’ seemed to peel back a new layer.
I’m not sure what you’re picturing, but it was far from glamorous: dozens of post-its, FigJam boards, open Notion documents, and long debates with Parker. We mapped out 50+ brands, interviewed founders, ran deep dive case studies, and pressure-tested the system until it worked as a repeatable, usable method.
Most days, I wondered whether I was just wasting my time, losing the hard-earned equity I’d built with my audience.
But eventually, things started to click — and I realized the strangest thing:
despite not posting, my platform had kept growing.
Experiencing the flywheel first-hand
You’d think things would’ve slowed down even a little — but it was the opposite.
Six weeks of silence, and yet my platform gained 7,000 new followers and racked up over 400K views. I kept getting consulting inquiries, sponsorship offers, and people sharing my work even though I wasn’t making any.
At first, I was confused. And then it hit me: I was experiencing my own Flywheel of Belonging™ — even though I’d never defined a product, service or way to monetize.
This was the final proof I needed. Proof that clear positioning, strong point of view, and layered world weren’t just theory — they were the foundation for compounding growth. They drew people in, made them care, and kept the the flywheel turning, even without actively pushing.
What truly mattered wasn’t constant output, or mindless consistency — but coherence around a single, resonant strategy.
A complete strategy system
We wanted to bring the Flywheel of Belonging™ to as many teams as possible. But to actually drive results, we needed to operationalize it: to create system they could move through, not just think about.
We thought about our previous clients. Experts in their products, their fields, who didn’t need more theoretical frameworks or subjective recommendations. They needed structure, guidance, and a way to get to results fast.
So instead of a full-stack brand studio, we built the approach we’d spent years looking for:
A focused, three-week sprint that aligns a brand around a single, resonant positioning — and translates it into messaging, narrative, and world-building foundations that compound.
Rigorous, efficient, built for momentum.
The Flywheel Sprint
Powered by the Belonging Flywheel™, the sprint focuses only on the parts of a brand that create real leverage:
A positioning that gives a brand its center of gravity
Messaging that helps customers see themselves in the story
Website foundations that express the strategy on a brand’s most valuable owned channel
Throughout the intensive sprint, we work with brands to pressure-test positioning territories, build a 10-page strategy system, shape core web pages, and outline a roadmap for their immersive world to evolve next.
It’s designed to be intensive, hands-on, and backed by expert strategic work between sessions. Think 7.5h+ of live workshops and collaboration over 3 weeks.
After a year of building The Brandsider to 40K+ followers, it’s the first product I’m bringing into the world — because it finally feels like something worth launching.
What’s next
As of today, we’re opening a limited beta — partnering with a handful of teams at significantly reduced rates as we refine the sprint and gather testimonials. If you’re interested in participating, please book an introductory call here.
Before going public, I wanted to share this with you first. You’ve been here since the flywheel was just a rough sketch and The Brandsider was still a side-project. Your support genuinely shaped what this has become, and I’m so grateful we’re finally here. A girl can only live in R&D for so long lol.
Next week, we’ll be sharing our new Brandside website, and ramping back up to a regular content cadence. You can expect the first case study back, where we’ll analyze a brand through the Flywheel of Belonging™ (Not Byredo, because it turns out it’s very hard to make the case for it as an insider brand. More on that another time!)
Stay tuned! And thanks again.
xo,
The Brandsider
So excited for this!
Incredible!