Wendy Covey of Trew Marketing Talks About Her Startup

Wendy Covey of Trew Marketing Talks About Her Startup

Where are you from originally?

I am a native Texan, and have lived in many of the major cities in Texas. This illustrious list includes Houston, Dallas, Austin, College Station, and Dripping Springs. Ok, so a few are not in the majors quite yet.


What university did you go to?

Texas A&M University


What brought you to Austin?

Austin’s casual environment, natural beauty, and smaller-town feel were my initial attraction, not to mention good tex-mex. I was excited about the growing opportunities in the technology and entrepreneurial sector and where that might lead my career growth.


What is your passion and strength?

I have a deep appreciation for engineers and scientists and the creative innovations they develop that not only impact our lives but drive much of our economy. . My passion is to help them spread the word about their products and services in a clear and simple way.


What need does it fulfill?

My energy, resourcefulness, strong communication skills, and deep tech marketing experience make me a strong partner to the technical business executive or technical sales manager who often has completely different strengths. With a long history in event marketing – from traditional trade shows and conferences to webcasts– as well as a background in software services business leadership, I am able to work with them on a wide variety of critical marketing areas.


What exactly do you bring to startups?

I am co-founder of TREW Marketing. With our team of professionals, we offer comprehensive marketing services. For start-ups, we are often engaged as a Virtual Marketing Manager or for a specific need, such as message development, creative, website development, or media relations.


What type of startup would benefit from your strengths?

B2B technology companies, particularly those targeting technical audiences such as engineers and scientists, are the best fit for TREW Marketing. We also do much work in education.

What was the most challenging aspect of starting up a business?

My top two:
1. Determining a scalable pricing model
2. Figuring how to staff the business through the peaks and valleys of growth


What advice do you have for entrepreneurs?

Interview ten business owners. This was the best thing we did during our ideation phase. Some were in the same industry, and some were totally different, but all of the interviews helped us to gain clarity in how we wanted to operate, and avoid some of the trouble spots that others have gone through before us.


What Austin-based resource have you found to be the most helpful and why?

Leadership Austin – Through my business partner’s participation and board position, we’ve greatly expanded our network of diverse leaders in Austin.
AEN – This organization provides us with a broad view of the entrepreneurial community, including organizations and events. I enjoy expanding my horizons through the crazy blog posts too.

BIG Austin – Being a minority-owned business, we were able to use the resources of this nonprofit for our initial basic business questions. The staff was friendly, patient, and we saved ourselves the additional costs on attorney fees, which is always nice on a start-up budget.

RISE Austin – This incredibly helpful conference featured a broad range of interesting topics for entrepreneurs with quality, knowledgeable speakers. The event was an impressive feat for a free event, no doubt. I am very much looking forward to the next one.

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Please note: Wendy Covey will be giving a Shortcourse. Please check out the schedule here.

Best regards,
Hall T.