How visible do founders need to be?

My approach to founder-led storytelling

In the past year or so, I’ve really noticed a rise in questions around founder-led storytelling, especially with my clients who tend to be early stage startups or smaller companies.

Some questions I hear from founders:

• How visible should I be?

• Do I need to be posting on social media or other channels beyond just the brand channels?

• If I prefer to stay more behind the scenes, is that damaging the potential growth of the company?

• What if I just really don’t like writing or creating content?

• What if I’m too busy?

• What do I even say?

Add into the mix complex feelings around feeling cringe, getting too personal, seeing backlash to other founders, their own relationships with social media or other channels… and it can feel pretty complicated.

But, I think it’s a whole lot simpler than it seems. My main approach is: Lean into what your strengths are and what you’re most comfortable with, and stretch and get help where it makes sense.

Founders have so much pressure on them, but you’re ultimately people first, so any storytelling or branding involving you needs to be sustainable and enjoyable in the long run, or:

1. You won’t keep up with it, and

2. It won’t lean into your strengths →

3. Then, it probably won’t resonate with your customers and help your company anyway.

So, hopefully this quick guide will help! In this video, I break down my approach to founder-led storytelling/marketing/branding (whatever you want to call it):

• The three levels of visibility a founder can have

• Which channels to choose

• How to go personal without necessarily having to put it all out there

• Some of my favorite examples of founder-led storytelling at the moment, from

  Sublime
  and
  Sari Azout
  ;
  Mina Park
  ; Big Night and Katherine Lewin; Innvestors and Apres Inn

• + some examples suggested by others: tldv; Harry Glaser; and Scent Lab and

  Ali Kriegsman

*If this is showing a typo in the cover image ^ I have since fixed but the thumbnail has cached 🙃. Copywriter in me is embarrassed.

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Other brand bits & bobs:

• Especially relevant to the examples I showed in my video… “Is Substack the new speciality store? Designers think so” Many industries are finding creativity and a personal approach on this here platform.

• In the video, I mention that there are so many more channels to choose from than just LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok. I often refer back to

  Kevan Lee
  ’s comprehensive list (I keep it bookmarked!) so am really enjoying his update for 2024: Marketing Channel Menu

• The power of positioning. This article on calling drinks “mocktails” vs. “nonalcoholic drinks” vs “sodas” vs “juices” shows how powerful categories can be in giving us shortcuts to “who is this for” and “what is it for”

• Really enjoyed this breakdown of Impossible Foods’ Verbal Identity

• Fascinated by Audrey Gelman extending the world building of her boutique to a hotel in upstate NY: “Something that’s very unexplored is the space between luxury hospitality and theme hospitality,” she says, noting that she’s a Disney fan. When Gelman launched the Six Bells, she imagined a back story for the store, led by pseudo-historical characters in a fictional English village she dubbed Barrow’s Green, replete with a church, post office and manor house.

• “Why does every streetwear store sell coffee now?” by

  Jake Bell
  is a great overview of how brands try to find extensions and create more moments of interaction with customers:

Why Does Every Streetwear Store Sell Coffee Now? ☕️

• Descript, which I used to edit the video above, has a really refreshing approach with its new suite of AI tools called “Underlord.” Love the humor while still making it easy to understand the value of the features. I just played around with some of the features and the attention to detail and copy consistency is really fun - great example of how brand personality can surprise and delight, especially when way too many products are trying to impress you with their “AI features” without actually communicating what they do! (See my past video where I break down 10 AI startups here)

• As you know, Libby and I launched The Office of Beloved Brands in April. Our first project is live! We got to work with Chief to refresh their visual brand identity - you can check it out in action here. I love all things community, especially ones that help women, so this was a dream client to work with!

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