Scaling Clean: Rebecca Holmes, Founder of bennu
For two decades, my latest Scaling Clean guest, Rebecca Holmes, has helped companies rebuild their websites and their brands.
Today she's the founder of bennu, a growth marketing company that delivers brand strategy and marketing for clients whose mission she believes in, including renewable energy and resource resilience companies.
Here are three takeaways from our conversation.
A website is strategy first, artifact second
Many executives treat a website as the finished product. Rebecca sees it differently.
"It's an artifact and the strategy behind it is the product."
Companies often look to revamp a website when the underlying problem is an outdated story that never evolved alongside the business. Rebecca also pointed to the timeline as one of the biggest mistakes companies make. A rebuild squeezed into two or three months rarely holds up. She says the work deserves six to twelve months to be done properly.
The CMS matters just as much as the design. Rebecca described it as connective tissue that should tie together a company's sales tools, apps, and even investor portals, not just the pages a visitor sees.
Forgettable is the bigger risk
Rebecca pushed back on the instinct to play it safe with brand and design.
"In a category where everybody sounds the same, the risk is being forgettable."
She pointed to a shift happening across renewable energy branding, where companies are moving away from green leaf logos and sun imagery toward bolder colors and photography that speaks to new audiences, including rural landowners and ranchers.
Her advice for testing new homepage copy is to share it with your grandmother. If she can't explain what you do and who you do it for, the copy is overcomplicated.
AI is not a strategist
Rebecca and her team use AI daily, from Copilot for internal work to Claude for development and problem solving. But she's clear about where AI falls short.
"It lacks experience and strategic know-how. It lacks reliable taste over time. It can create forty different options for you, but it's still going to have no conviction about which is right."
She compared AI to a highly motivated intern, which is fast, smart, ready to work, but without the judgment that comes from experience. Discerning what stands out in a marketplace is still a human skill.
Why This Conversation Matters
Below are a few of Rebecca's reflections:
-
A website succeeds or fails based on the strategy behind it, not the design layered on top.
-
Being forgettable is a bigger risk than getting the color palette wrong.
-
AI can generate options quickly, but the judgment to choose among them still belongs to people.
-
Fun fact: Women-led startups deliver 78 cents of revenue per dollar invested, compared to 31 cents for male-led startups, and are 21% more likely to report higher profitability during market volatility.
Rebecca also shared a piece of advice for anyone considering starting a business: don't wait until you feel ready. Courage isn't certainty. It's confidence that you can adapt to whatever comes next.
Catch the full episode of Scaling Clean on your favorite podcast platform: Apple, Spotify, Radio Public, Amazon Music, iHeart, and YouTube.