What Works for &yet Chief of Strategy Sarah Bray: Intrapreneurship, Mission, and Confidence
By: Tara Mcmullin
Tags: Leadership, Work Life Balance, Community, Intrapreneurship, Entrepreneurship

The Nitty Gritty

How Sarah Bray, entrepreneur, author, and digital strategist, transitioned from working exclusively for herself to joining the smart and passionate team at &yet, a design and development consultancy

What it means to be an intrapreneur in the modern creative world — and what drew Sarah to the &yet team

How to fuel your self-confidence, especially if you’re moving from the entrepreneurship world to a team culture

Why Sarah and the &yet team create resources, like Leadershippy, that serve the company culture as well as the public to inspire, educate, and support them on their work/life journey

Have you ever felt that you could never work for someone else, other than yourself?

Sarah Bray, entrepreneur, author, and digital strategist, felt the same. That is: until she saw how she could give more life to her ideas by working on a team.

Despite working independently for years, today, Sarah works as the Chief of Strategy at &yet, a design and development consultancy based out of Richland, Washington, that centers their work on possibility and people..

Listen to this inspiring episode of What Works to hear more from Sarah about her transition from working solo to working in tech.

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Tapping into your confidence as you transition from entrepreneurship to intrapreneurship

“My confidence in what I could do and what I could bring came from those experiences and that validation. I was at a point in my growth that I didn’t have to seek out those people. I never had to sell my ideas to anyone because they’d been reading my work for a long time and they knew who I was.” — Sarah Bray

The digital entrepreneurship world and the tech world are similar in many ways. Culturally, they’re both forward thinking and quick moving. There isn’t much bureaucracy (hopefully!) — autonomy and bold ideas are welcome.

But the big difference between the online business world and the tech world is that the people who work within each realm don’t cross paths often. As Sarah shares, her new coworkers at &yet weren’t familiar with her digital work, besides her business partner Adam. But it didn’t matter because Sarah knew she created quality work… and she used that confidence to push forward from running solo to joining forces with others.

If you’re considering making the jump from growing your own business to working for someone else, consider: what do you do really well? How is what you do well served by pivoting to a team-based environment? And how does this shift serve you personally and professionally?

Embracing frustration to fuel your work

“Frustration is the most amazing thing. Anytime there’s something I’m annoyed about or that’s driving me crazy, that’s the feeling that I know my own limitations well… and that I really need to be working with other people to move my ideas farther than I’m able to take them.” — Sarah Bray

Something I love about &yet’s company culture is that they fully embrace the idea of possibility. But not as a grandiose vision that doesn’t feel grounded in reality. Instead, it’s at the heart of everything they do and something they highlight on their website’s homepage.

Possibility is no doubt something that Sarah embraces in her life, too. If she didn’t, would she have considered working for someone else? Would she have believed that working with others could make more of her ideas come to life than what she could do alone?

Embracing different perspectives to create better work

“When you’re on your own, you do what you want to do because there isn’t anybody pushing back. On a team, it’s a lot different. It’s a good thing. It’s so good to have these differing perspectives coming at you.” — Sarah Bray

As entrepreneurs, we often make all the decisions on our own. We have our grand vision that we work every day to bring that alive in the world… and sometimes we operate within an echo chamber. This might sound obvious but it’s a great reminder: collaborating with others can help you to create better work, regardless if that’s a consultancy that you contract work out to or if that’s you working on a team for someone else.

How often do you feel like some of your ideas haven’t seen the light of day because you can’t do everything yourself? Even if you don’t plan to jump into an intrapreneur role, how can you embrace possibility in your business today?

Hear more from Sarah Bray on this episode of What Works. We dig further into intrapreneurship while still staying true to your own values and mission.