Behind the Scope

Veronica Paula left a decade in corporate marketing to build blankbase, a platform for remote workers seeking work-ready places to stay. She shares the realities of bootstrapping, building in public, slow travel, and becoming a mom while growing a startup.

Guest links:
Website: https://blankbase.io/coming-soon/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blankbasehq/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/veronicapaula/

It started with a Threads post asking whether creatives factor in their client's location when pricing. The comments were... telling. In this episode we break down two exchanges that perfectly capture why so much of the creative industry is stuck. We get into why location matters, why comparing creative services to groceries fundamentally misses the point, why the hourly rate isn't as fair as it feels, and what it would actually look like to productize your services in a way that still accounts for the factors that matter.

Daniel Triendl is an illustrator based in Austria and someone whose career has been shaped by the people around him. In this episode we talk about how working alongside other creatives in New York pushed him to start illustrating seriously, and what his ongoing collaboration with fellow illustrator Birgit Palmer looks like in practice. We also get into the design community, why creatives tend to keep to themselves even when they don't need to, and why reaching out is always worth it.

Guest links:
Website: https://www.danieltriendl.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danieltriendl

A McDonald's Christmas ad made entirely with AI. A Porsche ad drawn completely by hand. Both dropped around the same time. Only one of them got pulled from the internet. In this episode, we get into what these two examples actually tell us about where the market is heading. We're seeing the beginning of a real split: AI is becoming a signal for cheap, and human-made is becoming a signal for quality, craftsmanship, and even prestige.

Where did all the emos, skaters, and indie kids go? And where are we finding meaning behind what we wear and who we belong to? The algorithm telling us how to think, AI homogenizing our research habits, 2025 was officially called the year of overwhelming okayness in brand identity. It's all connected. In this episode we get into why everything looks the same right now, in branding, on social media, in our homes, on our feeds, and what's driving it.