The Challenge of Building a Digital Presence as a Multi-Venture Founder

For Jess Cervellon, building a cohesive digital presence felt like orchestrating multiple personas at once. Jess found herself at a pivotal crossroads: running Open Late Collective, a brand strategy and digital marketing agency for e-commerce, while simultaneously developing a CPG brand for launch in 2025.

Coming from the world of content creation, Jess understood innately that "content is king and queen." She had already established her brand in person, regularly speaking at events and building industry connections. Yet, she had not invested in her online presence, where her network could expand at scale and truly grow her business.

When it came to Jess’s LinkedIn, her approach to brand-building was scattered and ineffective—what she describes as "spraying and praying" without any real strategy or focus. However, she explains that, “I wanted to put my stake in the digital universe… When you're going into the e-commerce space, building your audience is so important."

With this goal in mind, Jess partnered with Windmill Growth to help her build an online audience for her agency and lay the groundwork for her upcoming CPG brand launch.

From Overlooked to Viral: A Strategic Transformation

Prior to Windmill Growth, Jess LinkedIn content lacked strategic direction, which severely limited her ability to build the digital presence crucial for her ecommerce business.

Working with Windmill Growth over five months transformed her approach, resulting in:

✓ 30% increase in follower growth

✓ 62% increase in engagement

✓ 50,000+ impressions on top posts

✓ Inbound partnerships and business development opportunities

Jess’s content data shows a leap in organic marketing material and reach – both crucial for growing her businesses. But beyond metrics, Jess experienced a fundamental shift in her content strategy through working with Windmill. "Now it's more methodical. I can read my statistics better and stay ahead of trends like LinkedIn's pivot to video content."

Building an Audience for Multi-Venture Success

For Jess, LinkedIn isn't about popularity—it's a strategic business asset for BOTH of her businesses. "This has really helped me in business development… not just from a thought leadership perspective, but from directly impacting my businesses."

Her experience offers key insights for founders:

1. Strategic Consistency is Key:

A methodical approach yields better results than sporadic content.

2. Use Your Personal Brand as a Business Foundation:

"Building your personal brand is really important whether you're a founder or not... it's the one thing you have to showcase your work."

3. Pre-Launch Audience Building Will Put You Ahead:

For her upcoming CPG launch, she’s "creating a following of that journey" so her new brand will already be ahead of the competition.

With Windmill's Essential Growth Service, Jess transformed from random posting to strategic audience building, creating a foundation for her current agency and future CPG venture. As she puts it, "I will thank myself in 5 years from now about posting consistently now."