Ten years ago, it was normal for teams to talk about their company a little differently.

Marketing had one version. Sales had another. Leadership adjusted the story depending on the room. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked well enough. People filled in the gaps. Progress still happened.

That doesn’t work anymore.

As the world, markets, and organizations generally have grown more complex — remote teams, flexible roles, AI tools, faster cycles — the cost of translation has gone up. Big time. What used to be a minor inconvenience now slows decisions, creates friction between teams, and makes it harder for the story to hold together as it moves.

We see this most clearly at the leadership level in enterprise orgs. Answering the same question differently in different rooms used to feel normal, expected. Now it creates confusion. The world is saturated with content and we’re all so much shorter on attention than we used to be. So today, inconsistency travels a lot further than nuance does.

And growing at scale in the billions of dollars has a way of exposing all of this at once.

A company can operate for years with small gaps in language. Especially with a founder at the helm. Then it scales, acquires, or shifts strategy, and those gaps are suddenly everywhere: sales conversations, internal alignment, investor questions, market perception. It feels like you’re trying to plug leaking holes with Scotch tape on a cruise ship.

That’s usually when we’re brought in: when the story the company has been relying on can no longer support where it’s headed. In short: you’ve got some serious brand debt.

The Villain rebrand reflects that reality. Yes, the cobbler’s children had no shoes for far too long.

But we were super strategic from the beginning and drank our own champagne, as the kids say. This rebrand is not about changing what we do. It’s us being clearer about who we’re built to work with and how we help leadership teams reduce friction, align faster, and move with confidence when the stakes are high. We do this well once you’re in the door working with us, frankly, we do it REALLY well. But before then, before you know us? We weren’t putting our best face forward. We weren’t making it easy for anyone to get what we did well easily and quickly.

So we started with what we do best: We understand B2B enterprise tech organizations. And the strongest B2B brands share a few things in common:

Our clients want that. Our prospects need it. So we clearly said it: We partner with teams navigating moments where clarity isn’t optional like major growth bets, platform expansion, market repositioning, or leadership change.

We’re now screaming from the rooftops that you’ll find us inside organizations where:

Our focus is verbal strategy for high-growth, high-pressure, high-context environments — because that’s where we do our best work, and where our clients see the greatest impact.

This rebrand was just about making all that easier to see immediately.

If you’re leading a company through growth at scale right now, you already know this part doesn’t get easier. A $1b+ organization isn’t small. More people. More decisions. More pressure for the story to hold without constant explanation.

The leaders we work with aren’t looking for inspiration. They’re looking for clarity that actually helps them move and see monetary results for their efforts. They want fewer translation moments, faster alignment, and language that supports the business as it changes shape.

That’s what this next chapter of Villain is built to support.

As CEO, my mission is pretty simple: I remove anything that gets in the way of us doing our best work for the right teams.

If you’re heading into a moment where clarity matters more than activity — a new growth phase, a market shift, or a leadership inflection point — we’re built for that work and would love to chat.

We’re excited about what’s next, and we’re grateful to the clients who’ve trusted us in their most consequential moments. And we’d love to hear what you think about our refreshed brand!

-Lauryn