In this Business Blast Podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews Kaitlyn (Caitlin) Pierce, founder of Pierce Social and creator of the Binky Bear product. Kaitlyn shares the origin story of Binky Bear, describing how a personal need while weaning her daughter led to inventing the product, building a landing page, and quickly attracting a $15,000 investment—validating the power of gut‑driven ideas. She then offers her core social‑media marketing insight: treat Instagram like a reality‑TV show, focusing on storytelling, documenting behind‑the‑scenes, and prioritizing authenticity over polished content, echoing Gary Vaynerchuk’s “document over create” mantra. Kaitlyn discusses practical business planning advice, highlighting the free Small Business Development Center service, creating a simple budget spreadsheet to determine monthly revenue targets, and paying herself a regular salary to separate personal and business finances. Personal growth advice follows: trust your gut and curb over‑analysis, especially for those with anxiety. She identifies time freedom as the ultimate key to happiness, arguing that while money can be earned, time cannot be bought back. Kaitlyn recommends Shonda Rhimes’s The Year of Yes, emphasizing the growth that comes from saying “yes” to uncomfortable opportunities. Her favorite quote, “Be the change you want to see in the world,” reflects her belief in proactive personal agency. The episode concludes with her online handles: Instagram @pierSocial, Binky Bear @vancabear, and websites peersocial.com and vancabear.com.
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Alright everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner as always. Today's sponsor is Authors Unite, and if you want to become a successful author, Authors Unite is the place to go. So head on over to authorsunite.com to check out a free case study that will teach you how to do exactly that. And now, let's jump into the episode. All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Caitlin Pierce with us. She is a mother of two from the Berkshires in western Massachusetts and is an entrepreneur at heart, having launched Pierce Social, her social media marketing company in 2016. Known for being a passionate and dedicated entrepreneur, Caitlin thrives on watching big ideas come to fruition and helping those throughout her community. So welcome to the show.
Thank you very much for having me.
Of course, grateful to have you on. So first one I got for you, Caitlin, is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
Oh man, that's a really hard one right off the bat. I guess if I had to pick a story, like, it's probably most recently this, this journey that I've been on with Binky Bear, which is a product that I invented. And as you heard in my introduction, my business was social media. That's what I was doing. And I invented a product and it just, I couldn't get it out of my head. It was this idea that I had when I was weaning my daughter from her Pacifier. And I think it sat with me for a good year and a half before I finally was just like, I have to get this into the universe. So I finally did. And, you know, doing social media, that's where I started first. I built a landing page and literally I launched the Facebook page, mentioned it on my personal profile, and the next day I had someone reach out about investing in the idea. And literally, literally the day after. And I mean, I come from very, very humble beginnings. So I mean, you know, $1,000 is a significant amount of money to me. So when someone comes to me and wants to give me, uh, he actually offered me $15,000 to get this going. And that for me, I mean, that was more money I'd ever seen in my life. And so it was, it was a really big, just, it was valid validation, I guess, is what I'm looking for. So So that story is just like, you know, if you have something in your gut, just— you'll find a way.
Absolutely. That is so cool. I love that that happens.
Yeah, I do too. Yeah.
Um, so the next one I got for you is, what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
Okay, so my expertise in industry is really social media, and I run a marketing company around that. And one thing that people in my clients are coming to me with is Instagram in particular. Nobody can figure this out. Everyone's spending all this time. So what the best piece of advice that I've given everybody there is to stop thinking about your social media like a billboard and to start thinking about it like your own reality television show. So if you think about a reality television show, They usually follow some influencer or family or somebody that has some interest to their audience. And most always those people own their own business. So if you watch the reality shows, you'll see how they share these stories about their lives or their team. They have their cast. It's usually the family or the team members in this business. And you'll see each episode how they tell these stories. But almost always at the end, you know, the finale episode, something is leading up to like the store launch or this new product or this new, you know, like it's this big hype around something within their business. And so what the reality show is doing is it's building that, it's building that community, it's bringing you on that journey. And so when you start thinking about your Instagram as kind of a reality television show, you can start telling better stories. but also in a way that includes your business. So if you're a brick and mortar with multiple people, your cast might be the people working in the store. Or if you're a service-based provider, maybe you solely are the cast, you know, but when you think about it like that, it's made it a lot more fun. And people who have started transitioning to that and telling those stories and sharing those images are definitely seeing a lot more engagement.
Yep, I could not agree more. And I think something like, if you're familiar with Gary Vaynerchuk, what he says is like, Yeah, document over create. And that, that was a, that was a big thing for me because it allowed me to stop overthinking everything so much. And just like, dude, people just want to see like the authentic side of things. Like, not every picture exactly needs to be flawless, you know. Now, and I guess, you know, if you're doing like Instagram modeling or something, like maybe that's a little different. But for most of us that are like running businesses and stuff in that way, the authentic side, like not the, you know, un— Like they want the uncut. They wanna see—
Exactly.
Behind the scenes.
And that's exactly what every reality TV show is, is it's showing you that behind the scenes, what it took to get to that moment. And that's what people are looking for on their social media because the internet has made it so you can literally hire anybody for anything from anywhere in the world. So people now are looking for something to connect to. Why am I going to hire you? Why would I buy these products? And they want to be part of this community, and your social media is how you do that.
Uh, so next one is, what's your best piece of overall business advice? So not necessarily industry specific.
Um, I would say to have a plan, and by that I mean you can really start super simple. So when I transitioned from working full-time to running my business, I had gone to what's called the Small Business Development Center, and it's a free service through the SBA, I believe. And they're throughout the entire country in the United States, and they're completely free. And I had gone to this place and I said, listen, I need, I need a number. I need to know what I need to make in my business every month in order to pay myself what I'm making now and have the lifestyle that I have now, which is not, you know, nothing over the top, but what I was comfortable with. And so we put together like a spreadsheet with a simple, simple budget. Like if I need to pay myself this much money a month, and I want to have this much for hiring people, and I want to have this much for advertising, etc., etc., then what do I need to make a month? And doing that really, really helped me. Just overall, like it just, it gave me a goal to, to work towards. And then I understood how my money needed to be spent in my business. And so I started right from the beginning giving myself a paycheck instead of paying myself all the money that came into my business. And I think that keeping that separation was really important and getting that help with that plan.
And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
Oh man. Oh, these are tough ones. Um, I guess I would say probably to trust your gut. Just don't question yourself so much because I personally deal with a lot of anxiety issues and that's something that I've dealt with since I was young. And so I think anybody who really deals with that knows that you automatically already overanalyze everything and you question everything, and it just makes things probably a little bit harder than they should be. So my advice would be to just trust your gut because it has not, not done me wrong yet.
And then, so kind of going down a little bit of a different path, in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
Time. Freedom of time to be able to wake up and and be able to plan your day how you want to. And I mean, and with that said, obviously there's always going to be things that you have to do that you don't always want to do. But as a rule, for the majority of the time that you spend on this earth, to be able to plan that however you want to, that for me has been my ultimate goal because I feel like you can always make more Excuse me. I feel like you can always make more money, but you can never make more time. So anything that you give your time and energy to, that's it. You never get that back. So to be able to decide what you spend that time and energy on is a huge gift to yourself.
And then what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
Oh man, I like to read a lot of books and I usually, I I'm bad about like finishing them all the way through. Like I'll get almost all the way through and then I get another one and I'm like, I'm just gonna start this one. And so I guess probably most recently, most recently would probably be The Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes. And I really, really liked her perspective on it because she's somebody who is somewhat in the public eye, but she's, you know, kind of behind the scenes. And she decided to say yes to all of those things that she normally just says, no, no, no, no, I mean, I can't do that. And what I like about it is that those are the, those are the moments that you grow. Those are the, when you're just outside your comfort zone, like I know people say that all the time, but it's so true. When you push yourself, when you say yes to those things that you normally would just automatically say no to, like being on a podcast or speaking at an event or, you know, those are things people are just like, I'm not going to do, I can't do that. But if you just want, you know, you're like, all right, I'm just going to, I'm going to do it. That's when you grow. That's when you find new opportunities and, and that's how it works. So her whole book is kind of talking about that year or more that she spent doing that and what's happened.
And what's your favorite quote and why?
Gosh, now you put me on the spot. I had it too. There's a couple of them and now I can't think about it. I can't think of it.
It doesn't have to be exact.
No, there's one. Let me Google it real quick. No problem. I know there's one for sure. All right, so this is what it is. My favorite quote is be the change that you want to see in the world. Because for me, that has literally been life-changing to go from the mindset of, you know, you're, you're watching the news or you're reading things online and everyone's got an opinion about it, but not many people do something about it. Or, you know, people are told, well, you have to do things a certain way and they don't like it. You know, people who work, for example, who just hate what they do because some people have 9 to 5 jobs and love it. And that's just totally their zone. And that's great. But there's a lot of people that don't. And they just accept it. It's just, this is what it is. And it's not, it's not, it's not really their fault. It's just the, it's that culture, it's that mindset. So when you start really living a life where you make changes, and you actively set goals or make a plan to get out of a situation, it's, it's really life-changing because you realize how much more control you actually have over your life than you thought you did.
I agree. And thank you so much for coming on. The last one I got, where can our listeners best find you online?
I'm on Instagram a lot. So you can find me on Instagram @peerSocial. And then also for Binka Bear at the Binka @vancabear is our handle, and I hang out mostly there, and then also online at peersocial.com and vancabear.com.
Perfect. Thanks again for coming on.
Yes, thank you so much for having me. The podcast you just heard was made using Anchor. Ever thought about making your own podcast? Anchor makes it really easy for anyone to get started. It's a one-stop shop for recording, hosting, and distributing podcasts. Best of all, it's 100% free. Sign up now at anchor.fm/new. That's anchor.fm/new to get started.
