Futurecrafting™

I work with studio owners, agencies and solos in the creative industry, advising on business strategy, sales and marketing. Don't work harder. Sell smarter.

Advisor to Creative Firms & Indie Consultants

Kizny - The Wondercrafting™ Studio

Retired

Creative studio helping tech brands launch their ideas, products and services with high-end 3D animation and film. Markets: US, EU, Middle East, China. Clients include Huawei, Vaio, Gateway, Alibaba, Lexus, Toyota, Buick, Opera and hundreds of smaller brands.

Founder, ECD & EP

Hypergalactic

Space & tech industry is great at innovation, but sucks at conveying their ideas in a human way. We're here to bridge the gap with an explosive mix of brand strategy, communications and purposeful design.​

Founder

Space Communications Alliance

World’s first integrated marketing and communications network for the space sector

Agency Network Member

Film & Creative Industry

Film, creative and art director

IguanaMill

IguanaMill was a company founded to empower filmmakers with iOS software and hardware for timelapse cinematography. We successfully launched the software, but failed to deliver the hardware on time, and the markets cooled off.

DitoGear

DitoGear™ was an innovation company that democratized motion control to filmmakers by making it 10x more portable and affordable.

Co-Founder, Brand & Marketing

LookyCreative

Video production & animation studio.  Transformed around 2013 to Kizny Studio.

Founder, ECD

Misme New Media

Creative & interactive agency pioneering early web applications, flash technology and content management systems. Transformed around 2013 to Kizny Studio.

TLDR: If you run a creative business, you struggle with sales & marketing. Who doesn't?
I did. Until I didn't. Why don't we grab the bull by the horns?
—
When you start your creative firm, it's all for the love of the great work — innovation, awards, impact…

You nail the creative.
But the business side?
Winging it.

As your firm grows, so do the hats you wear. 

And with every project shipped, you wonder: where is the next job coming from?

But a lucky brief saves you from working on the business — you find a refuge right back in it.

—

Fast forward 10-15 years.

Burnout creeps in.
Clients’ recognition feels rare.
The reason you started is a blur.

Can your firm run smoothly without you? Barely. 

Real vacations remain as elusive as selling your shop one day. Because it's a "creative agency", not a business.

Have you saved enough to retire?

—

The truth is, running a creative firm under 15-20 people (like 75% of the industry) is tough.

You wear all the hats, but success lies in dropping them.

You’re fluent in your craft, but the business side?

That's where the struggle starts — especially when it comes to selling and communicating your value.

You don't have to face it alone. Advisors and consultants are godsends, at least according to Mr Beast.

What if there were a simple, elegant way to tackle these issues?

The Value Method™. 
Ask me about it.

My creds?

Black belt in creative entrepreneurship, leading firms in digital marketing, branding, film, CG & VFX. Serving top clients across Europe, the US, Middle East, and Asia. Awards? Tick.

Two decades in, I retired. Ditched the hustle and embraced a shamanic hilltop lifestyle in the middle of nature.

From here, I help creative firm owners and consultants sell smarter, instead of working harder.

Let's tackle the thing you've always avoided or struggled with — sales and marketing.

Let's transform the way you see, create, and communicate the value of your work, unlocking stronger client relationships, greater impact, and profit for your firm.

✅ Connecting? Include a note.
✅ Work together? Ping me.

Patrick Kizny 🏴

Sunny Bonnell

Founder & CEO, Motto® • Top Global Brand & Visionary Leadership Expert • Bestselling Author, Rare Breed • Co-Founder, VisionCamp® • GDUSA Top People to Watch • Top 30 GlobalGurus in Brand • High-Octane Keynote Speaker

Sunny Bonnell is the award-winning Co-founder and CEO of Motto®, a strategy and innovation firm, and a Thinkers50 Radar honoree, which awards the brightest minds in the world. 

Named a ‘Visionary Brand Icon’ by SWAGGER, she is a Top 30 Global Gurus in Brand, GDUSA's Top 25 People to Watch, and a WEBBY Award winner. The WEBBY Awards described Sunny as “Setting the standard for innovation and creativity.”

Sunny works with executive leadership teams to set visions, create big ideas, and inspire their culture to take action on that vision. 

Clients include:

Minnesota Vikings
Virgin
Google
Microsoft
Klaviyo
NFL
Hershey’s
Legendary Digital
Disney
Twentieth Century Fox
Choice Hotels
NCM
Andela
Goodnotes

Sunny is an internationally acclaimed keynote speaker for organizations like MasterCard, Microsoft, Dale Carnegie, Fast Company Innovation Festival, Inc., and Inspiring Workplaces. 

She's been featured in every major publication, including Forbes, Entrepreneur, and The Wall Street Journal. She has appeared on Closing Bell on the NY Stock Exchange, The Breakfast Club, and Yahoo Finance. She writes a popular and provocative leadership column for Fast Company with her Co-founder and partner in crime, Ashleigh Hansberger.

Sunny and Ashleigh are the authors of Rare Breed: A Guide to Success for the Defiant, Dangerous, and Different (Harper Collins, 2019) which flips the script on business as usual and carves a path for unconventional success.

“The top 5 career books of all time.” — New York Post
"Brazen and a ruckus to make things better.” — Seth Godin
“An entire windstorm of original thinking.” — USA Today

Sunny's work is focused on dismantling status-quo practices and inspiring others to do big things.

Founder, speaker, author, vision leader.

👉 wearemotto.com
👉 sunnybonnell.com

Co-Founder & CEO

Motto® is a vision-partner and strategic brand transformation company. We believe in the power of big ideas to clarify vision, rally people, and inspire action.

We guide CEOs, founders, and teams through times of growth and transition to unlock their Idea Worth Rallying Around®— the signature idea that sits at the heart of the business and makes it famous.

Internally: Our work drives the culture strategy for how you do things—by aligning leadership around vision and purpose, codifying values, creating plans to evolve, inspiring employees with a strategic narrative, and weaving brand-building behaviors and mindsets into your company DNA.

Externally: Our work drives the brand strategy for how you're positioned—by creating competitive difference, establishing key narratives, casting creative direction, and activating the brand across touchpoints.

Since 2005, we’ve collaborated with the brightest minds to solve their toughest strategic challenges. Leaders seek us out to clearly communicate what their company is about. Our unique advisory approach helps your brand and culture work together so your company thrives.

CLIENTS
Virgin
Google
Microsoft
Hershey
Andela
Goodnotes
Earnest
ServiceTitan
Brooklyn Brewery
Disney
Ninjas in Pyjamas

Most companies still treat brand like a story.

Something you tell the market. Something you polish, launch, and refresh when it starts to feel stale.

But in 2026, that definition is collapsing.

Because the modern company isn’t struggling with awareness. It’s struggling with fragmentation.

→ Strategy shifts faster than teams can absorb it.
→ Culture gets tested in public, in real time.
→ Smart people pull in different directions with good intentions.
→ Decision-making slows because conviction is thin.

That’s why the most forward-thinking organizations are making a shift:

Brand is an operating system.

A real internal system that helps people answer the questions that actually matter when things get messy:

⦿ What do we prioritize when values collide?
⦿ What kind of decisions do we make here?
⦿ What does “good” look like for us, under pressure?
⦿ How do we act when there’s no precedent?

Because the new brand question isn’t “Is it consistent?” It’s “Is it functional?”

Does it reduce friction? Does it speed up decisions?
Does it hold when the playbook runs out?

Ashleigh Hansberger and I unpack this idea in our new Fast Company article: 

Brand as Operating System is the next frontier of leadership.

If you’re leading a scaling company, a transformation, or a team that needs sharper alignment, this is for you.

What do you think? Weigh in. 

(link to read👇)

Thrilled to have been on Bloomberg Intelligence to discuss branding in the age of AI. 

We covered the biggest paradox business leaders are facing right now: 

AI should serve the idea, not the other way around.

AI is making content faster and cheaper than ever. Every company can publish more, say more, ship more.

Yet brands are becoming less distinctive. More output. Less differentiation.

Speed and scale stopped being competitive advantages the moment everyone got access to the same tools.

What separates companies now: clarity and alignment.

Brand is no longer a marketing function you delegate to someone else. It's your entire operating system - the logic that drives how leadership makes decisions when the shortcuts are infinite, and everything sounds the same.

That's the drift most leaders are feeling right now. The companies winning know what they stand for.

Stay tuned for the 🎥 clip shortly.

What if the real advantage comes from leaders who stay closer to the work instead of further away?

That question sits at the center of Brian Chesky’s return to Founder Mode at Airbnb.

He realized the company had drifted. Growth was strong, but the direction no longer felt authored by him.

Chesky followed the accepted playbook.

↪ Hire seasoned operators.
↪ Install steady processes.
↪ Hire great people and trust them.

It sounded mature. Responsible. Even necessary.

But over time, trust created distance. Distance created layers. And, layers weakened standards.

He began negotiating his vision with his own company. 

The people who designed the systems ran them until they didn’t. Then Chesky inherited their systems. Years spent unwinding choices that weren’t always in the best interest of the company.

So he shifted back into Founder Mode.

A way of leading where the founder acts as the editor of the work and the shape of the company. 

In practice, that looks like:

↳ Skip levels to understand how the work happens.
↳ Hire leaders whose decisions compound over time.
↳ Stay close to product so quality has a visible owner.
↳ Keep vision at play daily so direction is never inferred.
↳ Hold direct relationships to stay close to truth.

Some will see this as overreach. Others will see it as intelligent stewardship.

Both views are valid. But a pattern is hard to ignore.

Jobs reduced Apple to small teams he managed. 
Huang at Nvidia has 40 direct reports in engineering.
Chesky works in the details to preserve taste.

Founders who remain in the details tend to make clearer decisions and build stronger momentum.

Misalignment compounds faster than ever.

You beat compounding forces by staying close enough to see what matters in your company.

Three habits define Founder Mode for CEOs who want scale without drift:

↳ Set one direction and reinforce it weekly.
↳ Use vision and values as filters for decision-making. 
↳ Stay in the details long enough to teach good judgment.

If leaders cannot predict what you will call great, they default to committees.

Trust your instincts. You know your business better than anyone.

Worth the watch 👇

It’s not every day that you get called “GOATS” “Iconic” and “Inspirational” but that’s an incredible set of compliments, and we are honored. 

Thank you to DESIGNWEEK for the feature on what we’ve learned in 20 years of running Motto® which Rob Alderson called “One of the world’s most interesting agencies.”

When you bootstrap your business from $250 to the caliber of agency we are now, everyone thinks it their permission to tell you you’re not good enough or how to run your company. 

We’ve been doubted before, even snarked at. There’s a lot of that nonsense in our rear view mirror. The one thing we never did was give up, and we said ‘Yes’ to doing it even if we didn’t know how. 

Call it guts, tenacity, obsession, blind love for the craft of design, or just plain audacity, in a room full of balloons we are sharp knives. 

🏴

“Pursue your grandest dreams." 

From “scrappy and chaotic” early years to an agency with 55 people around the world. Today Motto® is one of the world’s most interesting agencies.

Rob Alderson sat down with CEO and co-founder Sunny Bonnell to discuss conflict, culture and how Motto’s unlikely journey took flight.

"We were 22 when we started Motto – you haven’t lived a whole lot of life at that point. And Ashleigh and I had been fired from every job that we’d ever had.

We didn’t have much of a track record, but there was really this audacious belief. We made this promise to each other that we would say yes to everything, and we’d figure it out along the way."

Read more about their story here: https://lnkd.in/eD2ckAE2

Every contract holds more than legal language.

It holds insight that most companies never fully unlock.

Today marks a defining moment for one of the teams working to change that reality.

Ivo co-founder Min-Kyu Jung announced a $55M Series B led by Blackbird Ventures, with participation from Costanoa Ventures, Uncork Capital, Fika Ventures, GD1 (Global From Day One), and Icehouse Ventures.

In-house legal teams are operating under mounting pressure.

More complexity. Fewer resources. Higher stakes.

Yet, inside every agreement is a layer of strategic business intelligence that rarely makes it beyond legal review. All caught up in dense language and disconnected systems.

Ivo is bringing that intelligence to the surface.

They are building the leading AI Contract Intelligence Platform for enterprise legal teams, delivering precise contract review while transforming agreements into a source of strategic clarity. The result is faster decisions, smarter negotiations, and greater confidence across the business.

Motto® has been proud to partner with the Ivo team over the past several months, leading up to this launch.

Together, we shaped:

→ Brand strategy and category definition
→ An Idea Worth Rallying Around®
→ Voice and messaging
→ A complete visual system refresh
→ Incredible illustrations
→ A new website experience

More to come soon with the full Ivo case study.

Check out the new Ivo website below.

taplio

The Battle

Patrick Kizny 🏴

Sunny Bonnell

Followers

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Engagements

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Performance ScoreSunny Bonnell's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Patrick Kizny 🏴

Sunny Bonnell

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Sunny Bonnell's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreSunny Bonnell's LinkedIn Performance