Meet Samantha, founder of Fresh Ideas Club and strategy-first marketer who cares more about building fandom than pumping out campaigns. In this episode, we sit down at her Calgary ceramics studio to talk about the overlap between craft and brand building, why happy mistakes matter, and how a 13-year ceramics practice shaped the way she sees story, patience, and permanence in marketing.

Sam shares how founders can turn community into a real channel, move audiences off rented platforms like Instagram and TikTok, and build durable relationships through email, storytelling, and mission-driven brands. She breaks down the creator economy (and why it’s just the artisan economy with new tools), the risks of relying on algorithms, and why even camera-shy founders need to lead the story of their business. We also get into Calgary’s underrated communi ...