This creator was named a "visionary entrepreneur" by Forbes.

Then lost everything.

Last year, her one-woman business did $750K.

AKA “The Customer Whisperer.”

Meet Katelyn Bourgoin.

By 28, Katelyn was already a 3X founder.

She sold her first business, a restaurant consultancy. Then started a branding agency…

When she thought: Why not start a tech company?

And so, Vendeve was born — a skill-swapping network for female entrepreneurs.

Before long, Katelyn went from bootstrapping to venture-backed.

Eager to stretch every penny of funding, she paid herself next to nothing for 3 years.

From the outside, things looked great: 

• Forbes named them “the next LinkedIn for women entrepreneurs” 

• She was flying all over the world

• Winning awards

But behind the scenes, Katelyn was drowning. 

Debt and stress were piling up.

She kept asking herself: “Shouldn’t this be easier?

How are Sophia Amoruso and Marie Forleo killing it with their businesses?”





Then it hit her.

They had something she didn’t.

Massive audiences.

Katelyn convinced herself she didn’t have time for that. Besides…

“Wasn’t personal branding just a vanity project anyway?”

Vendeve continued to struggle.

And in 2017, the business finally ran out of money.

Katelyn was forced to file for bankruptcy.

She was emotionally and financially broken!

At a time when she felt utterly depressed and directionless...

The network she’d built through Vendeve bought her a free holiday to the Dominican Republic.

“Entrepreneurship is f*cking hard. Surround yourself with people who will take care of you when you’re too tired (or too stubborn) to care for yourself.”

Her network also offered her consulting work and senior marketing roles.

But for her, taking a job seemed like a step backwards. So, Katelyn did some consulting while she decompressed.

But it wasn’t long before she was itching for a new challenge.

Through her consulting work, Katelyn realised too many businesses don’t really understand their customers.

When she asked teams about who they served, answers were often really broad. She even witnessed business leaders descend into full-scale arguments on the topic.

So Katelyn launched Customer Camp to help marketing teams figure out:

• Who their ideal customers are

• And what those customers really want

She also stopped making excuses. 

It was time to build her personal brand.

In the past, her “be everywhere” marketing strategy hadn’t paid off.

"Addition rarely solved the root problems in the business—it just created new ones"

So she focused on doing less, better. 

Rather than post on every social channel, she went all-in on X (Twitter).

Her audience and revenue grew rapidly.

Prospects, new friends, her marketing heroes – all started reaching out.

Genuine interactions led to international mastermind invites and other interesting business opportunities. 

Doors were opening.

By prioritising her personal brand, Katelyn unlocked consistent business growth.

Things got easier.

She also started a behavioural science newsletter. 





This drummed up more interest for Customer Camp.

It began attracting sponsors.

Before long, the newsletter became its own business. Customer Camp went from a consulting to an insights business.

Leveraging her library of now-proven content, she started posting on LinkedIn.

And today, Katelyn has:

• 210K+ online followers (with 75K on LinkedIn)

• Grown her newsletter, Why We Buy to 63K+ subs

• Been featured by Forbes, Inc., Huffpost, USA Today

And recently co-created Un-ignorable (w/ Demand Curve) – which helps entrepreneurs build audiences of future buyers.

According to Katelyn, “Whoever gets closer to the customer wins.” And she’s on a mission to help marketing geeks “sell more stuff using science (not guru BS).”