PK is a marketing expert, brand strategist, and creative director, with nearly a decade of experience helping businesses build authority, scale faster, and stand out in competitive markets. From brand identity and storytelling to digital growth and high-converting creative strategy, his work is built at the intersection of psychology, design, and business.
As the founder of PK Design Hub, he has worked with startups, personal brands, and growing companies across multiple industries — including businesses featured on Shark Tank India — helping transform ideas into brands people remember, trust, and buy from.
Known for combining sharp strategy with creative execution, PK focuses on more than just making brands look good. He helps businesses communicate with clarity, position themselves with authority, and create marketing that actually moves people. 
Whether it’s building a brand from the ground up, refining a company’s public perception, or crafting campaigns that cut through noise, his approach remains the same: intentional, impactful, and results-driven.
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/pratyush-satapathy/
Website: http://www.pkdesignhub.com
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.
Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. It is my pleasure to introduce you to my guest today, Pratyush “PK”, founder of PK Design Hub, where he helps entrepreneurs and small business owners build stronger brands through strategic marketing, design and digital visibility. As a designer, storyteller, and host of the Underdog Protagonist protagonist podcast, PK is passionate about helping business owners focus on what they do best while empowering others to tell their stories before they’ve made it. Today we’ll discuss branding, delegation, entrepreneurship, and why visibility has become one of the most valuable assets a business can build. Pk, welcome to the show.
Pratyush “PK” Satapathy: Thank you Trisha. It’s lovely to be here and thanks for this wonderful introduction. I love it.
Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely. I’m so excited to have you on the show today. So tell us a little bit more about who you are, PK, or anything else we ought to know about you.
Pratyush “PK” Satapathy: Okay. First off, uh, anything, uh, people a person notices about me is my accent. So I’m from the great subcontinent of India. I have this accent, and I can’t help it, but I try to do well with it. Um, I have been into the design and, you know, creativity field since my childhood. I did not think much of it back then because I never thought I’d make it as a career. And I went into the technological side, as every Indian does. You know, you have to be an engineer in India. And that’s kind of a trend that goes on since. And that has been going on since a lot of several years. And my parents forced me to do that. I did that, but I found my calling in creativity. So I shifted careers up, went my own way, studied design, marketing, branding from YouTube, kind of try to teach myself from scratch. And fast forward 7 to 8 years, and here I am with my agency PK Design Hub. I’m currently managing it solo. It’s been a joy ride. It’s what I can say. And yeah, that’s all me.
Trisha Stetzel: Wow. That’s amazing. What an interesting journey you’ve had. So you have felt the same pain that many entrepreneurs feel as they’re building their businesses. And I know that you often work with entrepreneurs that are trying to do everything themselves solo in their business. Why is that one of the biggest obstacles you find to growing a business?
Pratyush “PK” Satapathy: Hmm. Interesting. So while we’re trying to build a business, every small business faces this obstacle that you have to do everything on your own. Right. And you don’t have a team. You don’t have a big team. You don’t have anyone to lean on. And you end up micromanaging everything. And while you’re at it, you think everything is on the plate. But slowly things start falling off and you start losing your business, right? And most of the small business owners or the people that I work with struggle with this because they feel it’s in their control, but actually it’s not. I mean, they could do a lot more if they only focused on their strength and what they’re good at and dedicate or, you know, kind of give the things that they are not so good at. Delegate things to people who are, you know, um, experts in that particular set of industry and let them work their magic. It’s kind of difficult at first because you don’t, you have to play with budget and time and resources and whatnot. But if you play around it strategically and try to have that cheat sheet of what, what’s important for me first and try to delegate that thing first, you’ll have so much time on your plate to focus on your business and then try to grow it.
Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. I find as an entrepreneur that doing the things that I’m not good at are really hard. They’re really hard. And so allowing someone else who’s really good at that thing that’s hard for you can create so much time and space in your business. You said something and you mentioned it here today too, but in our last conversation together, you said, Let them work on their magic and let me do my magic. Where did that come from? Or how did you arrive at that philosophy?
Pratyush “PK” Satapathy: Okay, so it goes back to my early days as a freelancer or agency or I didn’t have an agency back then. I, you know, registered the agency, uh, years later. But while I was starting to work with clients, all that did was micromanage and get into what I do best, right? They did not have much expertise on that, but they felt as if they did. And that kind of kept the project running for several more weeks. And while we were at the discovery phase, we found out that, what if you put your trust on me and let me lead this my way and see if that works out for you? And a client surprisingly agreed. And because we had a good connection, we were so upfront and blunt about it. Uh, he was like, okay, let’s do it. And he focused on what he could do best. He, uh, dedicated, I mean, delegated the things that I can do best. And things turned out perfectly. It was like magic that we witnessed in front of our eyes. He was good at business. I was good at marketing. And when we both came together, the business succeeded. So that’s how we came to this philosophy that you work on your magic. I’ll work on mine.
Trisha Stetzel: Oh, that’s so much fun. Now, do you find that your creativity really plays into this marketing space? So you’re being creative, uh, as an entrepreneur and being in the marketing space, do they, um, benefit each other?
Pratyush “PK” Satapathy: Um, sorry I lost you.
Trisha Stetzel: Oh that’s okay. No problem. Yeah. Um, your, your creativity, I feel like has really shaped the way you approach your business. So how does that creativity complement the marketing that you’re doing for your clients?
Pratyush “PK” Satapathy: Um, a lot of people think that when you’re trying to market, you have to lead people into a sale, right? And marketing sometimes is creativity. You have to promote something in that creative land so that it does not feel as if every other brand, you’re essentially trying to sell the same service or the product, but you have some things that is different from the other business. You might have a different story, you might have a different set of ingredients that you use. You might have a different persona you’re trying to capture. You might connect to a different set of audience. So there’s a different way. There’s a lot of variables that come into play, and when you work around that, you establish a set, a unique set of call outs for your brand that can be creatively used to market your product or service. So when I talk about creativity, I have been, I feel like, I mean, people might have different opinions on me, but I feel like I have always been creative throughout my life. I have been doing art, uh, craft, uh, sketches, paintings, um, anything that that falls under the category of being a creative person was all me and my parents were like, this guy is up to something.
Pratyush “PK” Satapathy: He’s on to something that’s a different story that I did not, you know, pursue any creative stuff back then, but that kind of became my stronghold, that I can do something creative. And when I dabbled on it while I was onto my journey of being a freelancer, I found out that if I mix that creative set of creative brain. With my projects, with the clients, with my approach, it kind of the material that I was preparing, it kind of felt unique. And the approach that I took and eventually the product that I made was unlike anything. And that’s how I felt like if you’re trying to be creative, you have to show that, uh, on paper by putting that into the, into words and, you know, X, Y, z, things fell into place. And, uh, we kind of discovered that, hey, this is how creativity works and this is how marketing. So it was all, it was nothing like I was taught. I was trained for, but it was all trial and error. And that’s how I learned and used it on my work.
Trisha Stetzel: Wow. Okay, so some of us are creative just in a different way sometimes. Um, thinking about that, I see a lot of entrepreneurs, particularly those who are new to business, working on their logo, making sure their logo looks good and feels good, and other it’s going to resonate with them and maybe not necessarily resonate with other people, but they spend a lot of time working on that from a creative space. What is the difference between just having a logo, that business logo that they work so hard on and a true brand identity? So what’s the difference there?
Pratyush “PK” Satapathy: Hmm. Interesting question, because a lot of people, when they’re trying to establish a brand, they’re always stuck on the logo. I need to have my logo perfect. I need my logo to speak about my business. I need it on brand. Now, the problem is that logo is not your brand. It’s just an emblem. It’s just a medium to for people to know about you, you know, to remember you. And that loop they stuck on is what kind of kills their brand. So brand, and as you said, identity is a lot more than just a logo. You have to see way past that when you combine a set of assets. You know, let’s take an example for this scenario. Okay, let’s talk about Coca Cola. When we think about the logo, we have that iconic, you know, curve ligature and their text saying Coca Cola. And that’s the logo we remember, right. But if I remove that from this red can, then there’s nothing if I don’t have that red on the can and just have the C, that’s nothing. Right? If I have both, but don’t, uh, pursue happiness in my message, the brand falls apart. So that’s the color. That’s the font of the logo. That’s the product. And there’s the psychology. When everything comes together, you form the brand, and when you only focus on the logo, you’re only fixing one aspect of your brand, but not the whole brand altogether.
Trisha Stetzel: That’s a great example, and I think that that will resonate with a lot of people who are listening today. So for those who are already interested in connecting with Upk, what is the best way for folks to do that?
Pratyush “PK” Satapathy: They can connect me from my website. It’s still under construction, but should be done within a week by the time the episode goes live, so it should be done. It’s PK designhub.com. I’ll say it again, it’s PK designhub.com. And the the email they can connect me through is also info at pk designhub.com. Again, I’ll say the email is info at pk design.com. You can also connect me from from social media. You know, I’m available on Instagram threads and I upload occasionally on YouTube. So yeah, I’m always there.
Trisha Stetzel: Okay, fantastic. Thank you for sharing that. Speaking of brands, there’s a big difference between a personal brand and a business brand, or maybe not a difference, but they are separate and feed each other. So what is your idea or what would you, um, what would you say about the personal brand and the business brand and how they balance?
Pratyush “PK” Satapathy: Okay, this might stretch long because it’s a deep topic, but I’ll try to be as brief as possible. So when we talk about personal brands, you try to connect with an individual or a single person or single entity and whatever the person is trying to promote, sell or speak is what you resonate with, with the brand, right? When we talk about a personal brand, we don’t talk. Think about the product first. We think about the person first, right? It’s always a person driven brand. You talk about YouTube creators, you, let’s say podcast host, uh, think about any person who is on social media trying to put out videos, right? Everyone is promoting a personal brand because they’re trying to promote themselves. But when we talk about a professional brand or a business, the difference is that it’s not led by a single individual. There’s a set of individuals who manage that company or so-called brand. And as I said, it cannot be represented by one person. But nowadays people are trying to make or, you know, dedicated face to the business because they have somewhat understand that understood that, uh, people connect with people. And if you don’t put a face for a business, there’s less likely to build trust. And we all operate on trust, right? So kind of the businesses are leaning towards this personal brand segment or the factor. But yeah, it’s all kind of a same play. When you talk about personal, it’s kind of casual. But when you talk about this professional brand, it’s kind of this formal attire that you can imagine of, uh, and uh, people anyways, connect through stories. If your story is strong, regardless is personal or professional, people will resonate and eventually buy from you.
Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So let’s talk about storytelling. I know that’s a big part of what you promote or what you do. How important is it to be a good storyteller when it comes to marketing?
Pratyush “PK” Satapathy: Of course. Now if I try to put an ax on my leg, uh, I’ll say that I’m not a great storyteller yet. I’m trying to be, uh, but I feel like if you try to tell your story in such a manner that it resonates with people who are in the same boat or feel like they’re in the same boat as you, you connect faster, you build trust faster, and they start to like you faster. Right? So I go with this analogy called know, like trust. People start to know you first. If your story resonates, they’ll start to like you and they’ll eventually start trusting you. And that’s how you turn someone into your customer or your client. And we all, in this professional endeavor, we, regardless if it’s a personal brand or a business, we try to sell stuff. And storytelling is one of the best media that we use to promote our story, to sell our products, to sell its benefits features, and try to make it enticing for that set of audience or set of customers, prospects or customers. So when we talk about storytelling, you do not make up things, right? You just try to speak to the person on the other end that can, uh, or that is feeling the things that you are feeling.
Pratyush “PK” Satapathy: If the product is about sunscreen, let’s talk about stories or in a way that connects with the audience that. What problem have you faced while applying sunscreen? Do you. Do you feel like it’s leaving Suntans even after applying it? 2 or 3 coats. Uh, you know, in 30 minutes intervals? Or do you feel like the scream is such a good product that I can’t, uh, I cannot carry it or I can, cannot carry it in my, uh, vacations. So it’s kind of that, you know, you try to formulate your message in a way that, um, the product is not speaking about its benefits or features. It’s rather connecting view regarding on, uh, on the level where you are feeling like this is something that I have felt and maybe this is what you will feel as well. And hence this is how we are connecting. So it’s kind of vague. It has deeper levels, levels to it. But I’ll, I’ll hear what you have to say about storytelling and then maybe we’ll dig in deeper.
Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. It makes so much sense to me. The storytelling is more about emotion, and most of us know when it comes to purchases, people buy based on emotion and then they will come back and validate with knowledge. So if we can tell that story, to get someone to feel what that product or service can do for them, I think we’ve done a really good job when it comes to storytelling.
Pratyush “PK” Satapathy: Absolutely.
Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. So all right. Um, speaking of storytelling, many people who are listening today are probably listening to this conversation come full circle around to social media, because many of us, when we think about marketing, particularly in smaller businesses, digital marketing is a really big thing in our businesses, and many of us think of social media as a place to do that digital marketing. So for most business owners, particularly those small to medium sized businesses. Social media can feel really overwhelming. So what advice would you give to someone listening today that wants to show up consistently with their story, their brand, without it becoming a full time job?
Pratyush “PK” Satapathy: Gotcha. Now, the number one thing that people feel is overwhelming us. They feel like there’s so many platforms to be live in, and I don’t have time to go live everywhere. So the number one tip that I can give anyone who is trying to go into social media is don’t try to go all in on all of the platforms, right? Pick one platform that you feel like it will do justice for your audience and do go all in there. Let’s say you feel Instagram is your tribe. You find your tribe on Instagram. So go all in on Instagram, don’t focus on threads, Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, etc. just go all in on Instagram. If you feel like your audience lives on YouTube, go on YouTube. I mean, it’s kind of a no brainer, but people think like they have to do everything to stay on top of the audience. And it’s not. I mean, you have to stay consistent to grow on either of the platforms. And if you try to do everything, you’re basically doing nothing. And that’s my number one tip. Secondly, every platform has a different set of algorithms. And don’t waste so much time trying to teach yourself the what every algorithm means. As I’ve said, if you’re focusing on one single platform, you try to learn that algorithm first. And every other platform kind of extends from that algorithm. So you kind of kill two birds in one stone is, uh, if you’re trying to do that. So and social media is not that complicated as people think. If you’re trying to establish good connections with people, if you’re trying to, if you’re staying true to yourself and not trying to make things up, you will always grow. And there’s no question about it.
Trisha Stetzel: Those are great tips. Tell me, I’d like to if it’s okay with you, um, go a little bit deeper into the services that you provide for your clients. So tell me more about Peak Design Hub.
Pratyush “PK” Satapathy: Okay. I established the agency because I wanted to do more and I wanted to have this major breakthrough as I talk in my podcast. And I found out that as you touched on it briefly, uh, in our, you know, speaking session is that people are trying to do everything. So I try to take things off from their plates and I try to provide 360 degree marketing solutions so that their product is marketed better. Obviously, I cannot do everything on my own, right? I cannot do the same things that my clients are doing. I cannot manage everything on my own. So I have a team which does, uh, website design and management, branding, identity and consultation. We also do social media management. We also prepare ads and also manage the ads on Meta and Google. We provide e-commerce listing designs and also give them a facility to, you know, do PPC management such as Amazon. We list their products, we try to market that. We try to run ads on Amazon as well. Apart from that, we also handle one off projects. We don’t do that much, but exceptions, uh, come in time to time. Within these, uh, different buckets of designing and marketing. Okay.
Trisha Stetzel: Wonderful. And you have a team. You’re not doing it all by yourself, which is the big lesson.
Speaker 4: And that’s the big lesson for us today. Yes.
Pratyush “PK” Satapathy: Uh, I need to clarify that I’m a solo entrepreneur. I don’t keep my team always, uh, on, uh, you know, full time payments. So I try to hire talent when I have the project in, uh, you know, what do you call that, uh, in bulk or it expands my scope of horizon. So it always on, it’s always on demand. And I do demand based hiring and demand based projects and, you know, talents come in and go, but I’m usually the one who manages everything. So the title seems appropriate.
Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, no that’s fantastic. I love the on demand idea and so many other Industries are offering fractional services out there, which I know is a big word as well, so that you don’t have to pay for a full time employee. Okay. I would be remiss if we didn’t tackle your podcast, The Underdog Protagonist. Tell me more about that particular piece of work that you’re doing and why it’s so important to you.
Pratyush “PK” Satapathy: Okay. If listeners have been attentive, they might know that I am not the best yet. I cannot speak clearly. I cannot articulate clearly. I’m not I’m not the best in my work yet, but I’m trying to do my best, right? I have made an impact. I have scaled businesses three times. I want to scale businesses that that can record and say, we have scaled to ten times our usual MRI. Right? So I’m in. I’m always in that journey of making that big breakthrough. And while I was at that, while I was trying to teach myself design and trying to be an entrepreneur, I thought, why not give this a voice? Why do you have to wait until you go big? You do something, you become Elon Musk, and then you have to tell your story. Why can’t you tell your story while you’re at that hustle phase, while you are trying to build something? And that’s kind of led to an idea that, hey, let’s do a podcast. Let’s let me be the voice of, uh, that hustle person, hustling person who is trying to do everything and is trying to make the big breakthrough. And that’s kind of how the underdog protagonist bond. And initially it was just me doing solo episodes. Uh, I was saying about my journey so far, what struggles I’ve been facing. It was kind of a podcast journal entry.
Pratyush “PK” Satapathy: But things started to grow. People started showing interest, and I slowly started to have guests on my show who were subject matter experts and who somehow were feeling the things that I used to feel or I am still feeling. They felt as if they’re an underdog. And as I’ve told you, people connect through emotions and storytelling, right? So they connected through my story to my podcast and what I was going through. And then they showed interest like, hey, can I be on my, on your show? Can I be on your podcast? And that’s how I imagined, or I got assurance that I can bring up guests. So season two was with guests. Now we are at season three. Uh, things are not going good because I had a big break in between because of, you know, how my work was progressing and I was trying to scale my business. But season three is dropping within the next week or two. So we are all set and the recording sessions have been edited and we are just a step away from posting them and making them live so people can catch the underdog protagonist on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts and other social media and podcast streaming platforms wherever they get their podcast from. So I’m excited for that phase as well.
Trisha Stetzel: Fantastic. And of course, we’ll have that in the show notes. If you happen to be sitting at your computer, then you can point and click. Otherwise, when you get back to your computer, you’ll find those resources. You guys. All right, PK, as we get to the back end of our conversation, I have one last question for you. If there’s one message you would like the entrepreneurs who are listening today to walk away with about building a business and building a brand, what would it be?
Pratyush “PK” Satapathy: Okay, so if they’re following up so far, don’t try to do everything on your own. If you’re trying to do that, you’re only sabotaging your business or you know your growth. Try to put your trust on people who are nearest and dearest to you, or from how close to you you might have connections, your friends or colleagues whom you feel you can lean on. And then try to bring up, like, as you said, fractional part timers who can take up tasks from you and then try to scale together. You might be a subject matter expert on, let’s say, branding, but you might not know finance. You might be well aware about how to build websites, but you might not be aware on how to market a website. So everything has a separate domain. And you don’t need to be a expert on every domain out there. Try to niche down, try to do what you’re best at, and then try to scale or expand from there.
Trisha Stetzel: This has been such a wonderful conversation. Pk and for those of you who are listening, if you need help in this space that PK works magic in, then please reach out to him so you can have a conversation. Pk tell us one more time the best way to connect with you.
Pratyush “PK” Satapathy: Anyone who is listening to this podcast can connect me from my website, which is PK Design Hub, and also write me an email at info@designhub.com. I’ll say that again, you can connect me from my website at pk designhub.com, or write me an email info at pk designhub.com.
Trisha Stetzel: Thank you so much for your time today. This has been such a wonderful conversation and very enlightening. Not just for me, but for those who are solopreneurs listening to the show today.
Pratyush “PK” Satapathy: Thank you so much for having me, Trisha. It was lovely to be here. I have to work on my skills more and hopefully in the next episode, if at all, We are able to do one in the near future, you’ll see a different me and you’ll be amazed.
Trisha Stetzel: Oh, fantastic. Well, this has been wonderful already. I can’t wait to see what’s next. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Trisha Stetzel: All right, you guys, that’s all the time we have for today. If you found value in this conversation that PK, p, k and I had, please share it with a fellow entrepreneur, a veteran or a Houston leader ready to grow. And be sure to follow, rate and review the show. It helps us reach more bold business minds just like yours and your business. Your leadership and your legacy are built one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.
