The mid to late 2010s were the peak “learn to code” era. Software engineering was touted as the most valuable skill anyone could learn and even Victoria’s Secret angels were running coding camps.

I was a devastatingly unsuitable candidate, but the promise of a six-figure salary and abundant job opportunities was extremely tantalising to me as a strategist, with no discernible hard skills, earning £30k a year in London.

Thankfully I saved my hard-earned money.

Because just a few years later, anyone can code with AI — and the skills that command a premium have completely changed.

One of the more underdiscussed yet iconic iterations of the girlboss era

Content is the new code

I’m becoming more and more convinced that content today is what coding was in the late 2010s.

In other words, it’s the high-value skill that, if you learn now, has the potential to accelerate your career and earning potential.

AI has made building so easy that everyone is doing it, meaning there’s more noise than ever before.

The bottleneck is no longer “can I make this thing”, it’s “can I get people’s attention?”.

The people at the top have already clocked this.

The CEO of Snap said recently that companies will start shifting resources from engineering to marketing and distribution.

Netflix posted a comms director role paying up to $775k. Anthropic is hiring a presentation design lead for $305-385k.

The ability to get people’s attention, tell a story and make people care is now one of the most highly valued (aka $$$) skills in this new economy.

This goes way beyond just marketing

I think everyone should be learning how to make content, no matter what you do for a living, and especially if you’re worried about AI coming for your job.

Firstly, employees who are able to build an audience that their company benefits from are about to become extremely valuable.

Elena Verna, Head of Growth at Lovable, said this week that traditional distribution is collapsing and the only thing working for them right now is organic, employee-led social.

Lovable raised $330 million at a $6.6 billion valuation and is the fastest-growing software company in history. If they’re relying on their employees for distribution, that’s a clear signal of where things are heading.

Secondly, the enshittification of the job market is only heading in one direction. Making yourself visible through content is the best thing you can do right now to prepare yourself for the existential changes that lie ahead.

In just the past few weeks, I’ve spoken to five people who secured new roles as a direct result of posting content. Most of them only started six to twelve months ago.

Not only is content a way to demonstrate your thinking and attract employers who are looking for skills like yours, it also says something about your character:

Anyone who posts content with any degree of success is almost certainly: high agency, a good communicator, and willing to do hard things.

These are generalist qualities employers are desperately searching for, and there’s no way to demonstrate them in a job application.

Elena Verna talking about employee-led socials on etn

The barrier is lower, but that doesn’t mean more people will do it

Even though content is probably the biggest free opportunity available to us right now, most people still won’t take it.

With coding, the barrier was technical. You had to learn the languages, the logic, the frameworks. It was suited to a very specific type of brain.

With content, the barrier is psychological. The fear of putting yourself out there is a potent one.

I run office hours where people can book time to pick my brain. More often than not, it’s founders who want advice on getting started on social media. They say they want ideas, but really they my want permission.

The upside of this is that, if you’re willing to take the L and shoulder a bit of social embarrassment, you’re going to have a huge unfair advantage.

Whether you’re employed and want to become harder to replace, building your own thing and need distribution, or somewhere in between, this skill compounds in ways you cannot predict.

How I feel using Claude Code without a technical bone in my body

In other (but somewhat relevant) news… I’m launching something new!

Content Co-working

I’ve decided to turn on the paid tier of my Substack for anyone who wants accountability to help them stay consistent with content creation. Just FYI, my writing will always stay free.

Paid subscribers will get:

👩🏻‍💻Weekly 60-minute co-working sessions every Friday at 12pm GMT to plan and create your content for the week ahead.

💬 Group chat between sessions to share work, ask questions and get feedback from the group.

❤️‍🔥 Monthly live Q&A with me for feedback, brainstorming and content advice.

Why co-working?

One of the hardest things about content is that there’s no-one holding you accountable!

Blocking an hour every Friday to plan content for the week ahead has really helped with my consistency. Sitting on a call with other people who are all doing the same thing is an incredibly effective way to make sure it actually gets it done.

£10/mo - weekly sessions + monthly Q&A + group chat between sessions.

The first session will be on Friday 27th March, 12PM GMT. Sign up below!

Sign Up For Content Coworking

Thank you for reading! If you enjoy my work, here are a few different ways you can work with me:

✦ Exposure Therapy A 4-week cohort to help you finally start posting and build your personal brand alongside other founders, solopreneurs and creatives. Join the waitlist for the April cohort.

✦ 1:1 Office Hours If you’d like to get my advice on brand building, social media or content creation, book a 1hr session with me.

✦ Get early access to Dossie If you spend a lot of time researching social media content and are looking for a better way to organise it, join the Dossie waitlist to get early access.

You can also follow me on TikTok, Instagram and LinkedIn.

I found this genuinely fascinating, because for years, I felt the exact opposite.

I’ve always been someone who has a lot of ideas. The quality of them remains to be seen, because most of them never saw the light of day.

I’d think of something, there would be a brief but urgent flurry of excitement, occasionally I would take a few hesitant steps and then absolutely nothing would happen.

There was Mood, a CBD-infused alcohol alternative. I created mock-ups, a website and started contacting manufacturers before I abandoned the idea overnight.

A year later Trip launched in the UK and is now valued at £300m, so the idea wasn’t totally cracked.

Then there was Nook, the flat swapping platform. I created an Instagram community, facilitated a handful of swaps and started building out a platform using no-code tools.

Then Kindred raised millions of VC funding and after being relentlessly targeted by their ads, I freaked out, lost momentum and closed the IG page.

Just a girl, a dream and absolutely zero design skills lol

The pattern was always the same.

Have an idea, an initial burst of enthusiasm, quickly hit a wall (self-doubt, someone else doing it better, or just the reality of executing) - and quietly abandon ship.

For a long time, I was mortified about this.

I deeply believed I could never be the type of person who could “do things”.

And under no circumstances could I “put myself out there” and do the promotional stuff required for a project to be successful.

All of that changed two years ago, when I quit my full-time consulting job. I was so burnt out and jaded that I would have done almost anything to avoid going back to the corporate world.

I decided this could be the final test: could I be someone who does things?

The idea-to-execution problem hadn’t gone away. Except this time, I had little other option than to actually do it, or I’d be shipping my ass back to a 9-to-9.

Since then, I’ve “executed” a lot.

I’ve grown my TikTok from 0 to 33k. I started this Substack. I launched a cohort helping people start posting content. I built Dossie and have actual users.

I’m telling you all of this because two years ago, none of this felt remotely possible.

Here’s what I’ve learned about how to do the shit you say you’re going to do:

1. Create some stakes

For me, this was the rather urgent fact that I was unemployed and wanted enough income to avoid going back to consulting. Nothing sharpens the mind quite like the prospect of having to crawl back to something you loathed.

But for you, it doesn’t have to be that extreme. Please don’t quit your job unless you have a very solid financial cushion.

Instead, try social stakes. Tell everyone at the pub what you’re working on. Make public commitments. Post about it. Tell your mum. Tell your group chat.

People will follow up and ask you about that project you mentioned, and you’re going to want to have something to tell them.

The mild dread of someone asking “so how’s that thing going?” and having to say “yeah I haven’t actually started” is a surprisingly effective motivator.

I still do this. Yesterday I put “Founder of Dossie” on my LinkedIn and it made me feel deeply embarrassed. But deep down, I believe in the idea, so I’m raising the stakes.

It’ll be a lot harder to quietly shelve it now that it’s sitting on my profile (and now, immortalised in this article).

Mortifying tbh.

2. Put the plan down

This might sound counterintuitive from someone who works in strategy, but most of the action I have taken over the past two years has been entirely without a plan. I’ve had a whim and acted on it, often very chaotically.

If you’re someone who struggles to bridge ideation and execution, planning can be your greatest enemy.

It lulls you into a false sense of productivity and keeps you in the comfortable zone of not really doing anything.

You feel like you’re making progress, but you’re not really.

Say you want to start a Substack. You’re probably agonising over finding the perfect name, creating a cool logo and thinking about what your “brand” is.

I beg you to forget about all that for now. Think of one idea, pick a placeholder name and just write something.

Remember: you can literally change anything, whenever you want!!

No-one is looking as closely as you think they are.

Just get that first thing done and worry about the rest later.

3. You don’t need a “why”

When you first start doing something, you don’t need to know why you’re doing it or where you want it to take you.

If I had spent the last two years stressing about “where am I going?” and “what am I doing this for?”, I wouldn’t have gotten anything done. There would always be a reason to wait.

Instead, I freed myself from the pressure of outcomes and just did whatever popped into my head. There’s been no strategy or grand vision.

My mantra has been “just one foot in front of the other”.

And now when I look back, I can see that a path has revealed itself. Every chaotic, random thing I did led to something else.

TikTok led to clients. Clients led to a deeper understanding of what people need. That understanding led to my content cohort, Dossie and my soon to-be content coworking membership.

I still don’t know exactly where I’m heading, but I trust the process infinitely more than I did two years ago.

Literally just do things

Whatever it is you’ve been sitting on - the newsletter, the product, the TikTok account, the side project - I promise you it doesn’t need to be perfect, it doesn’t even need to be good!! It just needs to exist.

You can figure the rest out as you go.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoy my work, here are a few different ways you can work with me:

✦ Exposure Therapy. a 4-week cohort to help you finally start posting and build your personal brand alongside other ambitious founders, solopreneurs and creatives. Join the waitlist for the April cohort.

✦ 1:1 Office Hours. if you’d like to get my advice on brand building, social media or content creation, book a 1hr session with me.

✦ Get early access to Dossie. if you spend a lot of time researching social media content and are looking for a better way to organise it, join the Dossie waitlist to get early access.

You can also follow me on TikTok, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Subscribe now

Breaking out of your own four walls of thought

A little bit of career lore: I spent years working in innovation for global brands like Heineken and Red Bull, helping them identify new opportunity spaces and launch new products.

We took ideation very seriously. We had a whole roster of techniques, all grounded in how the brain actually works. The underlying principle is simple: the more experience you have in a field, the more locked in you become to a certain way of seeing things. Expertise builds rivers of thinking, and our job was to break people out of them.

Algorithms are now doing the same thing to all of us, a gazillion times over.

They’re programmed to feed you more of what you’ve already engaged with. Which means if you’re building a skincare brand, you’re seeing the same Pinterest mood boards, the same Reels, the same aesthetic as everyone else in your category.

It’s no wonder everything ends up looking and feeling the same.

And if you’re working in-house, there’s real pressure for your ideas to perform. The safest move feels like replicating what others have done.

The problem is, doing the same thing as everyone else is a short-term fix. You’re building long-term brand equity.

Also, the algorithm thrives on originality. Your true breakout moments will never come from something your audience has already seen five times over.

Do you remember when everyone was obsessed with butter content lol

A practical guide to expanding your thinking

Whether you’re stuck on a campaign concept, a content idea, or how to position your brand, here are some practical exercises to help you come up with fresh ideas:

Exercise 1: Look for inspiration outside your world

Sometimes the most “original” ideas come from taking a concept that’s working in a completely different world and applying it to your own.

Pick three industries that have nothing to do with yours and spend an hour immersing yourself in their online bubbles.

Say you’re a skincare brand. Go look at:

• How indie restaurants use food styling and photography. Could your product shots borrow from that instead of the same flat-lay everyone else is doing?

• How independent bookshops are building cult followings with almost no budget. What can you take from how they talk to their audience?

• What colour palettes and textures are trending in interiors right now that haven’t crossed over into beauty yet?

A little tip: a great way to break out of your algorithm bubble is to set up burner accounts.

Create a fresh IG/ TikTok profile and search keywords in totally different categories, engage with a few posts and let the algo retrain itself. You’ll start to see a whole new world opening up!

Exercise 2: Study how someone else solved your problem

This is about finding someone who faced the same strategic challenge you’re facing, in an industry that has nothing to do with yours, and studying how they cracked it.

I once worked with a bank launching an investing platform for beginners. The challenge was getting people who found investing intimidating to actually sign up.

Instead of studying other fintechs, we looked at how brands in totally different categories had normalised something unfamiliar.

Headspace was a big one for us. We looked at how they turned meditation from something that felt pretty left-field at the time and made it something professionals did on their commute. That gave us way better ideas than studying competitors ever could.

What’s your biggest challenge right now?

• Making something boring feel exciting

• Getting people to switch from what they already use

• Justifying a premium price

• Building trust when you’re unknown

• Creating urgency for something people don’t think they need

Can you think of brands outside your audience’s categories that cracked any of these?

Get inspired by what they are doing, not your competitors.

Beauty blanding… this what happens when everyone fishes from the same pond of inspo

Speaking of getting inspired…

I’m building something new!!

As someone who spends many hours researching and studying social content for my clients, I was frustrated by the lack of one visual workspace to save all of these references in a way that was useful.

So I built Dossie - a social research workspace for saving and organising content inspiration across platforms.

Think Pinterest meets Notion, designed for people who spend a lot of time studying what works on social.

I built the features I wanted:

• Save videos into visual boards

• Add tags and notes (so you can remember why you saved something)

• Transcribe videos and extract the hook

• Search across everything

• Create shared boards for clients and collaborators

I’ve been using it for the past few weeks and pretty much use it daily. I’ve found it so helpful so two days ago, I decided to open it up to the world.

I wrote about how it came to life on LinkedIn and posted a TikTok and got so many positive responses (you guys are the best)!

I’m currently onboarding the first 20 beta testers, which feels kind of wild.

If it sounds like your kinda thing, you can join the waitlist here.

❤️‍🔥 Subscribe for more brand and content insights

Subscribe now

The frustration is understandable (I, too, know the pain of creating content alongside other work), but this is the gentle reframe I like to offer them, and it might help you, too.

There has never been a better time to start a business. Everyone talks about how the barriers to launching a product are lower than ever, but so are the barriers to getting it in front of people.

Interest-based algorithms mean that anyone can go viral overnight. A single viral video can generate 1,000+ waitlist signups, drive legitimate retail interest, and land you PR mentions you would have dreamed of.

Content is a necessary part of almost every brand’s distribution strategy, but it doesn’t “have” to be founder-led. Plenty of other set-ups and formats can work as well.

These are the most commonly trodden paths working for brands right now, in order of least to most expensive:

1. Learn to create content yourself.

This is the cheapest option and arguably the most effective for a new business.

Founders have the conviction, the product knowledge and the story to make people care about something they’ve never heard of before.

No hire will ever fully replicate that. And in a world where 73% of Gen Z rely on creators for purchase decisions, being the ‘creator’ of your own brand is a massive competitive edge.

The catch is that it takes time, and it requires learning a skill that most people underestimate because they spend so much time consuming social media that they assume they understand it.

And it’s not for everyone. You don’t need to look a certain way or have a certain personality to be good at this. However, it does require some honest self-reflection. If you dedicated two or three months to learning the skill of content, could you get comfortable on camera?

If the answer is yes, I would highly urge you to go down this path. Study what works, throw stuff at the wall, accept the inevitable embarrassment of your first few months and trust that it will all pay dividends once it finally clicks.

The founders of @creatorcamp are telling beautiful stories about their journey to build the next big film company - some great inspo to peruse.

2. Employee-generated content.

If you have young, hungry hires who are fluent in social who are up for being on camera and you’re willing to incentivise them accordingly, this is an extremely attractive option.

Kinso is a software company that’s racking up 20m+ views a week (!!) with employee generated content. They’ve made two Gen Z hires and given them complete creative freedom over socials.

They’re churning out an average of 3 pieces of content a day: a mix of team skits, storytelling and value content about building a startup with AI.

Team dynamics play out nicely on camera and there’s multiple “characters” for people to root for.

If you’ve got the right people, this can scale faster than any other option on this list.

Kinso spinning up a new account to document “The Intern Games” in a reality show format might be the most unhinged ECG I’ve seen but it’s working

3. Hire someone to be on camera.

This is where you hire a creator who becomes the face of your brand’s social presence. They script, film, and appear in the content. Your audience gets to know them and they build a relationship with your followers on your behalf.

The key hire criteria: they need to genuinely understand your product and your audience. If you’re curious how this works in practice, I recently spoke to Sophie Hood, the founder of Seoul Tonic, about how she made an in-house creator hire.

This approach is great because it takes content completely off your plate while building your brand’s audience consistently, however it does have its downsides.

Your content is tied to a person who can leave at any moment and while accounts can survive this if there’s a solid strategy in place (Olipop comes to mind), you need to be aware that you’re building equity around a face that could leave at any time.

4. Hire someone behind the camera.

This person conceptualises formats, scripts, films, directs and edits.

You and your team could be on screen (e.g. The Cirkel, whose content is strategized and shot by Jemima Carr Jones) or the content might be entirely product-led (e.g. Frida).

The point is that you hire someone dedicated to making it happen who can pull content out of your business that you’d never make on your own.

Finding one person who can do all of this is rare. More realistically, you might pair a strategist who can conceptualise and direct with a content creator who handles the filming and editing. Between the two of them, your channels are fully owned without you needing to be involved day-to-day.

I love how The Cirkel use a mix of fun team Q&A and high-drama storytelling formats.

The reality is, no matter which way you approach it, the only thing that really matters is that you give it the energy and resource it deserves.

Beware the trap of treating social media as a side quest. The sooner you start treating it the same way you would treat operations or product development (the “proper” business stuff), the faster you will see results.

Subscribe now

We’ve teamed up on a two-part series on building a brand on a budget.

Read Part one, Holly’s piece, which covers the foundations: the principles she uses to help brands earn attention through grassroots, discovery-led tactics

Part two, this piece, gives you a practical guide to using TikTok to grow reach organically.

We hope you enjoy!

The reason I love TikTok so much is because it can make brands blow up overnight. The algorithm doesn't care if you have 10 followers or 10 million - if the content resonates, it'll put your video in front of millions.

This has created a whole generation of small, founder-led brands becoming multi-million dollar businesses in timelines we've never seen before.

Hair Syrup started in 2020 from bedroom "hair potion" experiments and hit £4.5M in 2024. Odd Muse launched around the same time and became a £22.5 million fashion brand. Without TikTok, neither would exist at this scale.

The opportunity is enormous, but a lot brands are lost. They try a few trends, get mediocre results and decide TikTok isn't for them.

However, there is an approach that actually works, and it has very little to do with going viral!

Image: Aimee Smale opening the Odd Muse NYC flagship store, just 5 years after posting her first TikTok

First, unlearn some myths

Before we get into it, let's clear up the biggest misconceptions I hear:

“TikTok is just for Gen Z.”
Not true! Nearly half the US TikTok audience is over 30. In fact, Millennial parents are one of the most active user segments and have some of the longest screentimes (all those late night feeds are fuelling a hefty chunk of online spend).

“Your content needs to be loud, chaotic, or funny to perform.”
Your content has to be entertaining, but there are lots of different ways to entertain! Entertainment can be inspiring, uplifting, motivational, not just funny. You don't need to (and shouldn’t) perform a version of your brand that doesn't feel authentic.

“Jumping on trends is the best way to get views.”
Trends get quick views but rarely build lasting interest or brand recall. You might remember the sound, but how often do you actually remember the brand behind a trending video? That’s why this rarely works as a long-term strategy. It’s much more worthwhile to focus on building something with longevity that ties into a bigger strategy.

So, what actually works on TikTok?

TikTok is a personality-driven platform. Unlike Instagram, where visually interesting content can go viral on its own, TikTok is about the people talking.

It's Instagram's scruffier, more unhinged younger sibling, and the algorithm is currently accelerating even further towards unpolished content. Rough around the edges often outperforms anything that feels like an ad.

TikTok is fundamentally an entertainment app, which means your job isn't to talk about your product - it's to entertain people. Make content about their world, not your product. Reflect back their frustrations and aspirations, their in-jokes and references.

The goal is that people start watching for the entertainment value, and when they eventually realise "Wait, this is a brand?" it immediately changes their perception of you. Your product suddenly feels cool and relevant because you've shown you understand them.

The solution: Think like a TV Show

The most effective strategy is treating your content like a TV show. Something repeatable where every episode builds on the others. something people can follow along with.

One viral video is great, but a format people recognise and come back for is how you build an audience invested in your content. And the good news is, you don't need a massive budget or fancy production for this!

Eliza built their entire TikTok around one simple format: "Guess which outfit is more expensive." It works because it taps into universal desires (looking good for less, being smart with money) while teaching people something useful about spotting quality.

LuvJus has a brilliant matchmaking show where the host tries to set up strangers in the street. The product is subtly integrated by participants holding a canned cocktail throughout, but otherwise is never mentioned.

At the most ambitious end, there's an emerging trend of brands developing full sitcoms with scripted characters and narrative worlds - think Bilt and their show "Roomies." But the principle remains the same: create something people want to watch that reflects their world, not just your product.

Image: Eliza’s signature “Guess which outfit costs more” concept

Developing your “TV show” concept

The best thing about going down this route is you don't need to constantly generate new ideas. You need to commit to one strong, repeatable idea that becomes your signature.

If you’re feeling stuck, dig around in the archives and look at popular and proven TV shows or YouTube shows. Look at shows like Hot Ones, Cribs, Humans of New York, Blind Date.

These are all entertainment-driven concepts you can adapt to short-form and remix for any niche!

Your concept should be:

• Simple enough to understand immediately

• Repeatable without reinventing the wheel

• Naturally aligned to your brand world
  

  

Image: Proven, popular formats like Hot Ones can be remixed and adapted to your niche with a bit of creativity

Defining your consistent elements

Your concept needs two consistent elements to work: your characters and your set.

Characters are the people your audience will get to know and trust. This could be you as the founder, members of your team who are comfortable on camera, or creators you bring in to host your show.

SheerLuxe does this well by featuring specific team members consistently - you start to recognise and connect with the specific people behind the content.

Set is your consistent filming location. It doesn't need to be fancy - it could be a corner of your office, a specific public location, or even just the street outside your shop.

Immi Ramen interviews people about life advice on park benches, which gives them a simple but recognisable backdrop. Choose somewhere with visual interest that catches people's attention, but consistency matters more than production value here.

A simple formula to use is: [People] in [Place] doing [Thing].

These elements work together to make your content instantly recognisable and build familiarity, which is how real brand building happens on TikTok.

And finally…commit to the process!

This approach only works if you stick with it. TikTok audiences need time to recognise your format, get familiar with your characters, and start expecting your content.

Most series don't take off immediately. It takes weeks or months to find your rhythm and figure out what works. The biggest mistake people make is giving up at this point!

However, if you decide to move forward with something like this, make a commitment to post for at least 3 months before you make any decisions. Post regularly, 2-3 times a week works well.

Then look at what’s working and refine the format instead of re-working it entirely. Don’t scrap everything when videos underperform - keep tweaking them until it clicks!

At this point, I had recently left my consulting role after an intense 2.5 years and was figuring out my next move. I'd long been tempted by the freedom and independence of solopreneurship and had built up the experience to do so - but I had zero idea how to find my own clients.

After ending up in the biz-tok algorithm one day, I started to think that TikTok could be the answer. It felt like a safe space to try something out, away from the watchful eyes of my mates (millennials who prefer Instagram) or people from work (lurking on LinkedIn).

I reached out to some small TikTok creators in the marketing space - they confirmed that yep, they were getting clients from their content.

As promising as it sounded, the idea of filming myself and putting it on the internet felt so far beyond my comfort zone it’s not even funny.

If you follow me on TikTok, you know I eventually climbed "cringe mountain" and survived.

If that sounds like you - scared to put yourself out there but also feeling like you're missing out on opportunities - here's everything I learned about getting started when the idea of doing so makes you want to die.

Figuring Out What To Post

Something I hear a lot of people saying (myself included) is “I don’t have anything to say”.

Let me start by reassuring you that you don't need to have ground-breaking, industry-first theories to share stuff online. There are so many different ways you can approach content creation.

If you feel like you have nothing to say right now, this is a practical framework to help you find your voice.

Step 1: Summarise what's happening

Become the person who stays on top of industry news and shares the good stuff. Block out 30-minutes in your calendar daily to learn, research and really dig into things.

Your goal here is to share news or insights that not everyone will have seen because they don't all have time to stay across everything. There are so many creators who have built huge audiences by summarising industry news and making themselves a resource for anyone who wants to stay up to date!

This is your most valuable starting point - you're providing genuine value by keeping people informed.

Examples:

• 5 things that happened in [your industry] this week

• Breaking: [Company] just announced X - here's what it means

• This new study shows [interesting finding]

Step 2: Share your thoughts

The next step is to start adding your own perspective. What do you think about what's happening? What patterns are you noticing? This is where you start building your voice and showing how you think.

The more you do Step 1 and really immerse yourself in what’s going on in your industry, you’ll find you naturally start to develop more opinions as you start to connect the dots across different ideas and happenings.

Examples:

• Why [company's] new strategy is brilliant

• 3 trends I'm seeing in [your industry] and what they mean

• My take on [recent industry news/development]

• Breaking down [company's] rebrand

Step 3: Teach what you know

Share your expertise and help others learn. Think about the skills and knowledge you've built up over time - there's definitely someone a few steps behind you who could benefit from what you've learned.

You can approach this in three ways:

Share your expertise - Break down skills you use every day into simple frameworks e.g. "How to [skill] in under 10 minutes" or "The framework I use to [solve problem]"

Share your insights - Patterns you've noticed, lessons learned, things that surprised you during your time in the industry. "3 mistakes everyone makes when [doing X]" or "What I wish I knew before [starting Y]"

Share as you learn - Document yourself learning something new and teach as you go, bringing total beginners along the journey with you. "Learning [new skill]: Day 1 vs Day 30" or "I tried [thing] for a week - here's what happened"

These three approaches should give you a clear direction for your first few posts. Start with whichever feels most comfortable and build from there.

Getting over your fear of posting

Ok, so now you have an idea of what to post, it’s time to actually do it.

Knowing what to say and having the courage to say it are two completely different things. You might have 10 great content ideas written down, but still feel paralyzed when it comes to actually posting them.

If that sounds familiar, this next section is for you.

Everyone says “just start posting”, but if you’re anything like me, it’s not that simple.

This is a very practical breakdown of how you can get yourself to a place where posting seems possible. Don’t expect it to feel good (that comes with time), but this will get you to Point A.

My first ever TikTok!! 🥺

Step 1: Block everyone that stresses you out

The number one reason you're terrified to post content isn't because you're worried about people judging you. You're worried your content is going to be bad and you don’t want people to see you flop.

The simple solution is just. block. them. This is easier to execute on TikTok and Instagram, but I won’t lie, I also did a bit of a spring clean on LinkedIn.

You can unblock them (or not), once you've gotten over the initial hump and you feel less embarrassed about the whole thing.

I did this for my first month of posting and thank god, because my first videos were NOT good. Yours might be, too! That’s entirely normal and expected when you’re doing something completely new.

Step 2: Get comfy on camera

Before you even think about posting anything, you need to get comfortable with the feeling of talking to a camera.

The quickest way to make this happen is to just start filming yourself talking, with no agenda.Do this for a week. Pick up your phone and film yourself talking with no plan or script.

It’s exposure therapy to get used to the feeling of hearing your own voice and watching your face play back to you without immediately wanting to throw your phone into the nearest body of water.

Step 3: Find a posting partner

The reason content feels scary is because it’s just you, putting yourself out there and hoping it goes okay. Most of us are used to working in teams, where the burden of responsibility is shared.

That’s why I highly recommend finding a “posting partner”. This should be someone you trust - a friend who’s already posting content, a colleague, your partner - anyone you feel comfortable sharing this with.

Tell them your plan. Pick a specific day to post your first video and commit to doing it "with them." Even if you’re just chatting on WhatsApp while you do your first post, it feels much less daunting if it feels like a team effort.

If there’s literally no-one you want to share this with, you can do what I did. I DM’d a creator called Helena, who runs the brilliant account @startabusinesswithme. I told her I was thinking of creating content and she gave me the encouragement I needed to get started. She was my first follower and commented on all of my first posts, cheering me on. Find your Helena!

Step 4: Batch your first two weeks of content

At the beginning, consistency is more important than quality - you need to build the habit.

Unless you make content something that you're working on every day, you'll stop. You don't need to batch forever, but you need to set a solid foundation.

I would highly recommend batching your first five pieces of content and then posting them consecutively over five days. I think if I hadn’t done this, I would have posted my first TikTok video, spent the next 24 hours spiralling over its perceived success and might not have plucked up the courage to go again.

Don’t give yourself that option! Batch five pieces of content each week, for your first two weeks (at least). I promise you that by the end, posting will already feel so much less like some big dramatic event.

1 month after I started posting, ShowStudio reached out and invited me to be part of their panel show for S/S 25 Womenswear

It’s worth it!

Building a public profile for yourself through content is exposing and does make you feel vulnerable (I’d be lying if I said I was totally at ease with it) but I can honestly say the juice is worth the squeeze.

The internet is weird and wonderful, occasionally terrible, but mostly I’ve been blown away at the number of opportunities that have worked their way into my life because of content.

A steady stream of clients who’ve reached out to me, speaking gigs, brand partnerships and meeting a bunch of other wonderfully supportive and kind creators.

No-one is “naturally good” at content - I promise you everyone is rubbish at the start. But if you put in the practice and show up consistently, you will start seeing results.

It won't feel natural at first, but it gets easier, and it’s worth it!

GOOD LUCK <3

P.S the Content Bootcamp is coming!!

I'm launching a four-week group content bootcamp on June 26th to help you learn how to create short-form video content and skip the part where you're floundering trying to figure it out on your own.

You'll have weekly sessions where I break down everything you need to know about creating high-performing content. Plus weekly video tasks as homework and personalised feedback on every piece of content you create - before you post it.

If you've been thinking about creating content but need support and accountability to make it successful, this one's for you!

Join the Waitlist

However, there's been a handful of founder debacles lately that have illuminated the potential downsides to having your face inextricably tied to your brand - ones that aren't discussed nearly enough and that founders are not adequately preparing for.

The reality is, for most bootstrapped founders, building a personal brand isn't a choice, it's the only viable path to growth. But it comes with serious risks that can destroy everything you've built.

Why you probably can't avoid it

Most new businesses are entering extremely crowded categories. When you can't outspend competitors on traditional marketing, personality becomes the moat.

And there's a whole host of reasons why this approach is so effective:

People buy from people. You've heard it a hundred times before, but a founder showing up consistently creates a parasocial relationship that gets people emotionally invested in the brand in a much shorter time frame than any traditional marketing could achieve.

It's effectively free. When you're bootstrapping, your time and personality might be your only real marketing assets. Founder content lets you compete with bigger brands without the media budget they're throwing around.

The algorithm rewards it. No-one wants to watch brand content. Personal content performs better - the engagement metrics don't lie.

You get real-time market intel. Direct connection with customers gives you immediate feedback and creates an intimacy with your buyers that massive brands will always struggle to replicate.

Interestingly enough, female founders are uniquely positioned to capitalise on this. As Ali Kriegsman recently pointed out in her analysis of Touchland's $700M exit, female founder stories perform exceptionally well because they remain statistically rare enough to feel compelling.

The stealth brand myth

So why not just stay hidden? Build the brand without the founder front and centre?

The reality is that most viral "faceless" success stories aren't actually bootstrapped. I did some digging into consumer brands that have blown up recently (since the glory days of cheap customer acquisition ended) and one such example was Graza, the viral olive oil brand.

The founders stayed quietly behind the scenes while building their brand, instead relying heavily on influencer marketing to acquire their first customers. To get the word out, they sent 300 packages to food influencers like Justine Doiron and Molly Baz, each with hundreds of thousands of followers.

But Graza had $50,000 from Casper's co-founder Neil Parikh in May 2021, plus another $230,000 from angel investors later that year. That's what bought all those influencer packages and inventory.

This pattern repeats when you dig into any viral consumer brand success story. There's almost always early money or heavyweight networks pulling strings behind the scenes. The founder-stays-hidden approach sounds good in theory, but it typically needs serious assets to work.

Most first-time founders don't have cash or contact lists full of Casper co-founders. If you're starting with an idea, enthusiasm, and a savings pot, your personality is likely your biggest asset.

The risks no-one wants to talk about

But here's where founder brands get dangerous. The same emotional investment that drives sales can amplify disaster when things go wrong.

The recent Odd Muse controversy shows exactly how this plays out. When sustainability creator Mallory called out founder Aimee Smale for potential greenwashing, the internet did what it does.

Odd Muse is the textbook founder-centric brand. Aimee's face dominates their social channels, she narrates the brand story, and her personal journey is inseparable from the product. This strategy built a multi-million pound business in under 5 years.

But when controversy hit, Aimee couldn't separate herself from the business. She got on social media crying, defending herself in real-time. Her emotional response became part of the story, creating more content and more drama.

This reveals the two core risks that most founders don't prepare for:

Crisis amplification. Personal drama spreads faster and sticks longer than any corporate scandal. Business problems become viral entertainment when there's a face and a name attached. Your personal missteps - a poorly thought-out tweet, an old photo that surfaces - can tank your business overnight.

The scaling trap. The better your founder brand works, the more dependent your business becomes on you personally. Every campaign needs your face, every decision runs through your brand. Success creates a ceiling that's nearly impossible to break through without risking everything you've built. You end up owning a job, not a business.

Most founders stumble into these traps accidentally because they're focused on growth, not exit strategies. The genuine personal connection that makes you successful in the first place becomes the thing that limits long-term potential.

How to build strategically from day one

The solution isn't to rule out founder brand building as "too risky". Instead, it's about building them strategically, with an exit plan from the beginning.

Here's how to think about it:

Phase 1: Go all-in (but create separation)

Set up a brand account alongside your founder account from day one. You're going to be investing most of your energy in content for your founder account, but the brand account can exist as a moodboard with a small, curated number of posts that communicate what you're selling. This establishes you as separate entities from the start.

Define your brand beyond yourself. Before you post a single piece of content, get super clear on what your brand stands for independent of your story. Your personal narrative should amplify the brand mission, not eclipse it.

Distill your founder story. Develop a distinctive hook that you can repeat consistently on your founder account. Test different versions, and once you've found one that works, repeat it until you’re sick of the sound of yourself.

Phase 2: Start diversifying (once you have traction)

Once you're gaining traction, making money and becoming more visible, start building the infrastructure that lets you step back:

Shift focus to investing in the brand account over the founder account. You're still going to be a prominent presence - this isn't about disappearing overnight. It's about diluting your voice with other people so you're not the only one carrying the load.

Bring in other voices. Hire people who can make your brand's social presence work without your face in every post. Creators, employees, anyone who can represent the brand that isn't you.

Plan for things to go wrong. Now that you have visibility, create a crisis plan. Speak to people who know more about this stuff than you and invest in media training if you can. Look at founders who have managed tricky situations and learn from their mistakes.

Phase 3: Become the special guest

Shift your identity beyond 'founder'. Instead of positioning yourself as "founder of X," develop an identity that's bigger than your company role. Whether that's leaning into industry thought leadership or lifestyle content, the key is establishing yourself as more than just your business.

Show up strategically, when it matters. Let the brand do its thing, independently of you. Show up for major milestones and crises, but you're no longer a regular part of content.

Build for the exit (even if it's not in the plan). Your brand should run completely independently with its own personality and voice. You want to own an asset, not just a job that requires your face.

Some Phase 1 founder brand inspo

If you decide to build a founder brand, the next thing to figure out is how to do it WELL. With founder brands being all the rage, it’s getting harder and harder to cut through.

These are some of my favourite founders who are nailing the fundamentals right now:

Lillie, co-founder of Ditto: Sharing her journey building a social notes app with a clear hook ("inspired by a terrible breakup") and simple mental model ("like if Pinterest and your Notes app had a baby").

Alexa, co-founder of Sizzle: Building a cooking app she believes will be "bigger than Uber Eats" while sharing her eclectic journey from modelling to med school to startup founder.

Alice, founder of Mile-Off: Building a running brand for women in public, documenting everything from quitting Dyson to product sampling, anchored by her 13-year running story.

Key learnings: distill your story into a 1-minute version, develop a distinctive hook or mental model, test different versions, and once you've found one that works, repeat it everywhere.

But always remember that you're building a brand, not a personal following. The key is being strategic enough to capture the upside while building the infrastructure to survive the potential downsides.

As always, super interested to hear your thoughts.

Miranda

Building a business in 2025 also means being a creator and maintaining a steady stream of algorithm-friendly content that gets people invested in you and your mission.

This takes a gargantuan amount of work, so naturally, founders are looking to outsource some of the burden.

I recently made a TikTok video breaking down when founders should prioritise personal accounts vs. brand accounts - you can watch it here. The big question that follows is: once you're ready to expand beyond just your founder account, how do you actually manage it all?

As a result, there is a new job title in hot demand: The In-House Creator.

In-House Creator vs Social Media Manager

What exactly makes an in-house creator different from traditional social media positions? These are fundamentally different roles designed to solve different problems.

A social media manager typically behind the scenes to drive your social strategy.

An in-house creator is the face and voice of your brand on social platforms:

• they have a natural on-camera presence

• they have an intuitive understanding of what content resonates

• they have creative vision, storytelling abilities and execution chops

• they're able to create real connections with your audience through their personality

Not every social media professional wants to be on camera - nor should they have to be. But when you’re hiring an in-house creator, you’re not looking for someone to manage your social strategy. You're looking for someone who can embody your brand's vibe and personality and translate it into content that connects with your audience.

How Seoul Tonic Found Their Ideal In-House Creator

Aussie-born, functional beverage brand Seoul Tonic is a great example of a small brand who has successfully hired an in-house creator.

Towards the end of 2024, Seoul Tonic founder, Sophie Hood, brought in a small creator called Francesca (Cesy) to take over the brand socials.

Cesy is a creator who makes yapper content about fashion, food, life etc. She had been a customer of Seoul Tonic for quite some time and was in the early phase of growing her account when she was brought on to be the face of the Seoul Tonic account.

I chatted with Sophie about her decision to bring Cesy onboard and what advice she would give other founders looking to hire an in-house creator.

1. Look for Creators on the Rise

These types of in-house creator roles are in HUGE demand, but there is a fundamental paradox at play: if someone has already built a substantial following, they're unlikely to be interested in dedicating themselves to a single brand. Yet brands need someone with proven content creation skills.

Sophie Hood of Seoul Tonic shares her approach: "I would advise to not look at the huge creators—the real unlock is the smaller, micro creators who are on the way up."

Sophie identified Cesy when she had just 6,000 followers. Six months later, Cesy's following is close to 30k - they've grown together.

2. Identify Someone with Natural Brand Alignment

The key is finding someone who perfectly fits with the vibe and values of your brand. Cesy was already a customer of Seoul Tonic before joining the team, which created a natural alignment from day one.

When evaluating creators, prioritise these qualities over follower count:

• Genuine brand affinity: Look for creators who already use and love your products. This sort of authentic interest can’t be duped.

• Content quality over quantity: Focus on their creativity and storytelling ability rather than metrics. Do they have a distinctive style that aligns with your brand vision?

• Growth mindset: Look for creators with a genuine interest in business and the startup world. Sophie sees Cesy as "beyond a creator" and explains: "She's doing her MBA so I almost identified her as someone I could bring in house and over time mentor."

3. Hand Over the Reins

Once you've found your creator, Sophie recommends a hands-off management approach:

• Set clear frameworks: Have weekly meetings to align on strategy and brand guardrails, but avoid micromanagement.

• Give creative freedom: "Cesy has the login to TikTok and can post when she likes. I want her to post stuff that comes to her mind and feel like she can jump on trends and move fast". Approval is only required for specific content related to business milestones to make sure Cesy has creative autonomy.

• Integrate them into the business: "I spend time bringing her into other areas of the business which actually helps the content as she knows the business holistically." This approach fundamentally differs from a typical influencer relationship—in-house creators need a genuine understanding of how the business operates to create truly authentic content.

Sophie emphasised that this role requires someone who can work independently: "As a busy founder, the hardest part is finding the right people that don't need to be micromanaged. This isn't about assigning tasks like you would with a typical marketing role- it's about finding someone with creative vision who can run with your brand."

The Freedom to Grow Multiple Accounts

One of the biggest benefits for Sophie has been the ability to grow a separate founder account alongside the brand account run by Cesy.

"On my personal account I want people to get to know me like a real human and in a way that isn't 100% associated with the brand all the time," Sophie explained. "I think it's so common to lose your identity when you are building something."

This dual-account strategy serves multiple purposes:

• Builds two distinct but complementary audiences

• Reduces risk by making the brand less dependent on the founder

• Creates long-term personal IP for Sophie outside the business

• Allows each account to specialise in content that fits its audience

This strategy not only gives Seoul Tonic double the opportunity to connect with people but also sets up the business for way more stability down the road. Sophie gets to be herself while Cesy brings the brand to life, and together they're building something that's way more powerful than if Sophie was trying to juggle it all alone.

Action Steps for Small Brands

If you want to explore the idea of hiring an in-house creator, here are practical action steps you can take:

1. Identify early creators (>10k followers) who already use or talk about your products or similar brands. Look for creative vision and storytelling ability, not follower count.

2. Evaluate for brand alignment. Review their content to identify genuine fit with your brand values and vibe.

3. Reach out directly suggesting a relationship beyond typical influencer arrangements and be clear about the creative freedom and growth opportunities that come with helping build a brand.

4. Start with a trial project to assess creative alignment before committing to an ongoing relationship.

5. Create a clear brief but avoid rigid brand guidelines - creative autonomy is key.

That’s all for today! Thank you for reading and I promise it won’t be so long before the next one.

Subscribe now

P.S. If you're a founder, solopreneur or freelancer who wants to grow their brand with short-form video, I'm launching a 30-day content cohort in June.

You’ll learn everything you need to know about creating high-performing content, build a consistent habit and join a supportive community of people in the same position as you.

If that sounds interesting, join the waitlist below!

Join the Waitlist

This is the first newsletter since I decided to revamp my Substack strategy and focus on brand breakdowns of some of the less-talked about case studies so we can all benefit from a more varied diet of inspo - whether you’re building a brand as a founder or marketer.

Starting off strong with Meller: a Barcelona eyewear brand that's been around since 2014, but one I hadn't heard of until a few years ago, when it monopolised my entire friend group's sunglasses preferences, seemingly overnight.

Let’s take a little look at how they did it:

Numbers:

• Founded in 2014 in Barcelona

• Closed 2022 with a turnover of 11 million euros, a 97% growth compared to the previous year

• 550k+ Instagram followers

• 2m+ pairs sold

Business Strategy

Meller solved a simple problem: creative, quality eyewear was either unaffordable (€200+) or felt cheap. They positioned themselves in the sweet spot (€49-79), occupying the gap between fast fashion and luxury brands, giving people something that felt premium but wasn't precious.

The Core Engine

Their strategy is built on three key elements:

1. Cultural credibility and community participation

2. Creation of an entertainment ecosystem

3. Viral purchase mechanism
   

1️⃣ Cultural Credibility & Community Participation

Meller has embedded itself into the communities where the product naturally plays a role: festivals, club culture, streetwear. They’ve created and amplified experiences that make their brand a natural part of the scene:

• Hosting underground Meller club nights

• Supporting niche parties like Zsongo Club

• Turning product drops into treasure hunts at Sonar Festival

• Launching a festival-ready collection with techno-festival Awakenings

• Collaborations with niche streetwear brands like Cold Culture

By embedding themselves in these communities, they’ve created a cool-factor that elevates the product beyond its accessible price point.

2️⃣ Entertainment-first content

Meller’s social strategy revolves around episodic storytelling, with each collection serving as a new season in an ongoing series. In the Miss Galaxy campaign, for example, each sunglasses style is a alien-esque character competing in a supernatural talent show.

Rather than using creators as typical brand ambassadors, Meller casts them as key characters within these stories. Their latest campaign with Lissy Roddy is a prime example—she’s not just modeling sunglasses; she’s the protagonist in a series set at Meller HQ.

By weaving distinct characters and plotlines into each collection, Meller keeps their audience engaged and immersed in a larger brand universe that evolves with every campaign and turns their product into something more fun and interesting than just a pair of sunglasses.

3️⃣ Viral Purchasing Mechanism

Meller’s permanent 2-for-1 offer isn’t just a sales tactic—it’s a built-in viral growth strategy. By design, it transforms what could be a solitary purchase into a social experience. Customers are incentivized to share the deal with friends, turning every buyer into a potential brand advocate without the need for formal referral programs.

Beyond driving immediate sales, this strategy creates organic word-of-mouth loops, helping Meller’s products spread naturally within friend circles. It’s simple, scalable, and brilliantly effective.

Lessons for Brands

Find where you naturally belong

Start by mapping where your product already shows up in people’s lives. What cultural moments or communities could you credibly participate in? The key is embedding yourself in spaces where your product already serves a purpose.

Create entertainment, not ads

The goal is to create content engaging enough that people would watch even if they weren’t interested in buying. High production value is optional - so much can be done with an iPhone and a solid concept.

Distribution can be creative

Consider how your product fits into people’s daily lives and relationships. Are there natural moments or incentives that can trigger sharing? How can you integrate your product into conversations or events that people would want to invite others into? The goal is to make word-of-mouth not just something that happens by chance, but something you build into the core of your distribution strategy.

👀 Brand Spotting

New segment alert. Every week I’ll share a roundup of early-stage brands that are doing cool stuff. Lots of you are founders, so I wanted to create a primer on how to build a brand with minimal resources!

SULT
SULT is a new electrolyte brand founded by Hen Porpora (ex Puresport) and fitness influencer Milly Goldsmith. I’m convinced that being great at content is the ultimate unfair advantage for consumer founders - and these two are proof.

They're documenting every step of the journey in a super high-energy and entertaining way - speaking directly to an audience that doesn’t take wellness too seriously. They’ve not even officially launched and they've pulled off a bunch of impressive stunts. We're talking billboard placements, getting in front of Simon Squibb, and landing on James from Brewdog's "startups to watch" list.

>> Follow along here if you want inspo for how to build buzz, credibility and community before your product even hits the shelves.

Shop ZERO

Zero is a curated space for discovering indie brands that meet the highest environmental and ethical standards.

What's interesting? The founders have started with a hyper-local, community-centric approach. They've built a social audience around insider jokes about how people in LA dress, using content formats like "Clothing we can predict you own" and "Things people are wearing in LA", creating a highly targeted audience of LA fashion girls who they convert into customers through regular IRL events. A great reminder of how depth beats breadth when you're building a brand from scratch.

>> Follow along here if you want inspo for community-first brand building.

Beny Yoghurt

Beny is a probiotic yoghurt company that’s been popping up on my FYP for months now.

I love how one of the founders @couchwoman has been documenting the Beny journey from before she even quit her job to go all in on the brand. They’re sharing the unfiltered process of launching a CPG startup and involving their community along every step of the way, from explaining how they are making packaging choices to choosing a manufacturer. Incredibly insightful for anyone who is thinking of launching a brand.

>> Follow along here if you want to go BTS of building a business from day 1.

And that’s a wrap! Would love to hear your thoughts on the new format.

See ya next week,

Miranda

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I'm constantly amazed watching Gen Z founders build successful brands without the traditional "prerequisites" e.g. the years of industry experience or rolodex of connections. They're just really, really good at creating content that resonates.

Good Girl Snacks are a great example of this. They built a casual audience of tens of thousands before they even had a product to sell and landed on Forbes 30 Under 30 within their first year. Not because they had the biggest budget or the most connections, but because they absolutely smash their content and storytelling.

Meanwhile, massive brands with huge marketing budgets struggle to get even semi-decent engagement on their posts. But that's what I love about social media. It’s the ultimate meritocracy and great content wins, it doesn’t matter who made it.

Co-founders of Good Girl Snacks, the brand behind the viral Hot Girl Pickles

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, so I decided to chat with someone who lives and breathes content creation.

I sat down with Joel Bjarni Marlinarson, aka Coldest Joel on TikTok. He creates content for Chicken Shop Date (love) as well as mega-brands like M&S, Colgate, and PG Tips.

We had such a good chat about what's actually working in social media right now and where it's all heading in 2025.

📱Interview: Joel Bjarni Marlinarson (@coldestjoel_)

What are some common mistakes you see early-stage brands making with their content?

The biggest mistake is focusing too heavily on TikTok trends, sounds, and hashtags without having a real story behind the content. In 2023, especially with trends like 'Brat Summer' and 'Very Demure', audiences became exhausted with brands jumping on bandwagons. If you're going to use a trend, make sure it aligns with your existing content and message - don't do it just because competitors are.

Another common issue is not having a consistent brand story or showing personality. Early-stage companies often feel pressure to just post product shots and highly produced content, thinking that's enough to drive sales. But there needs to be an element of storytelling, and founders have a unique advantage here - they can attach their face to the brand and share the fascinating journey of developing their product over months or years.

How should early-stage brands prioritise their content efforts with limited resources?

Early-stage companies actually have an advantage - they can take risks that larger brands can't. While big companies have lengthy approval processes, startups can move fast and experiment. If content flops, it's not a disaster - TikTok's algorithm means fewer people will see it anyway. The key is being agile and willing to try new things.

Any practical tips to make content creation easier?

Make filming second nature. Amy Smalls from Odd Muse does this really well - she films her videos as if she's on FaceTime with friends. Set up a tripod and capture the everyday moments of running your company. Even if you're not sure how you'll use the footage, it can serve as B-roll for future videos with voiceovers.

You don't always have to create content with a specific end goal in mind. Having a bank of random clips from different parts of your journey gives you flexibility to create various types of content later.

How should brands think about repurposing content across platforms?

Treat each platform like a different person. Instagram is like speaking to your aunt, while TikTok is like talking to your crazy best friend. The message might be the same, but how you tell the story should adapt to the platform.

For example, when creating content for brands, we often use more lens flares and polished editing tricks for Instagram, while keeping TikTok edits rougher and more native to the platform. Always use platform-specific features like TikTok's built-in text and captions for better SEO, even if you've added captions in your editing software.

What content trends do you expect to see in 2025?

1. More cinematic, long-form content as TikTok competes with Netflix

2. Brands moving toward higher production value

3. The rise of the #SilenceBrand movement - audiences rejecting brands that mindlessly hop on trends

4. More gamification of content (similar to MrBeast's approach)

5. Increased focus on co-creation and audience participation in brand narratives

Who's doing great work in this space?

Odd Muse is a standout example. While I'm not a customer, I really enjoy their candid content. Amy has done an excellent job of not just being an influencer, but showing the realities - both ups and downs - of being a founder. They've built a true community through a mix of social content and in-person events like their recent pop-ups in New York and London.

What tools do you recommend for content creation?

Reddit is great for social listening, understanding niche communities and deciding what content to create. You can tap into very specific interests that might not be visible on mainstream platforms. Semrush is also great for tracking trends, though some features require a paid subscription.

Final Thoughts

Don't get overwhelmed by conflicting advice about trends, hashtags, and "best practices." Once you start creating content regularly, you'll build your own data bank of what works for your brand and audience - that's far more valuable than following someone else's playbook.

Joel creates content for major brands and is a great marketing creator in his own right. Follow his insights on TikTok @coldestjoel_

❤️‍🔥 Resource Roundup

ARTICLE: Mid-Day Squares hit $30M in revenue by treating their social media like a reality show. This is one of my favourite examples of founder-led storytelling and so much to learn from here.

ARTICLE: Merit Beauty's expansion from makeup to jewellery signals a growing trend of DTC brands crossing categories to become full lifestyle brands, rather than staying in their original product lane.

POST: Ex-RyanAir Head of Social Michael Corcoran explains why Instagram's new Reels testing feature could actually hurt brand engagement.

RESOURCE: A market map of early-stage consumer VCs still investing in consumer tech, marketplaces, prosumer tools, subscription models, and CPG/eCommerce, compiled by investors at Headline. All of these are for pre-seed to seed stage investments, so if you’re looking to raise funding soon, this should help!

Work With Me

• I chat with Emily Tout, founder of Mighty Slice to get the ☕ on how to get early traction for your CPG business.

• Resource roundup of practical insights, strategies and tools that have caught my eye this week.

📱Founder Facetime - Emily Tout, Mighty Slice

I sat down with the lovely founder of Mighty Slice, Emily Tout to chat about the wild and scrappy journey she’s been on since quitting her job in law to launch a high-protein dessert brand.

Can you tell us about Mighty Slice and what you're building?

Mighty Slice is disrupting the dessert industry with an everyday dessert option for everybody. The 'everyday' element comes from the 16 grams of protein we pack into each of our desserts.

How did the idea come about?

It really started from my intense sweet tooth! I began making protein cheesecakes and tiramisus in my kitchen at home while running a fitness-focused social media presence. I would post these recipes alongside my fitness content, and while the fitness content did well, the cheesecake videos absolutely exploded. After seeing this happen repeatedly, I realised there was clearly demand beyond just my own cravings.

What were your first steps in bringing the idea to life?

Initially, I considered creating an ebook with protein cheesecake recipes. But during one car journey, I had this moment where I thought bigger - why wasn't this available in supermarkets? I was training to be a lawyer at the time, working long hours, and couldn't find anything like this in stores. Seeing how many people were making similar recipes online but nothing comparable in supermarkets felt like an obvious opportunity.

How did you start making sales?

We started incredibly scrappy. I built a website and initially ran a subscription model where my partner Jamie and I would drive around London for 12 hours on weekends delivering cheesecakes to anyone within the M25. Looking back, it was completely unscalable, but at the time, I was convinced those 20 weekly customers were our business model!

How did you make the jump to retail?

We had a somewhat random journey into grocery, much quicker than anticipated. While sampling at boutique gyms, we met someone involved with Asda deli counters who made an introduction. Within six months of launching in just 2-3 gyms in London, we were making cheesecakes for Asda deli counters.

What's wild is that even when we got into Asda, we were still making everything ourselves. It was myself, my brother, and Jamie's brother Stephen waking up at 4am to make 100 cheesecake slices in this commercial kitchen. We'd spend entire days just making cheesecakes and then deliver them to the Asda stores ourselves. It was completely exhausting and unsustainable - we were so caught up in production that we had no time to actually grow the business. Eventually, we realised I needed to step away from the kitchen to focus on building the brand and securing more listings.

Your branding is fab - how did that come about?

Thank you! We were initially called "The Mighty Slice" and my first attempts at branding on Canva were honestly horrific - we even printed expensive sampling stands with that early design! We eventually worked with a small agency, and I was very involved in the process. I took a lot of inspiration from US CPG brands, which are so much more playful and bold with their packaging. I wanted to create something that people would want to be seen with and photograph.

What early investments were worth it?

Professional photography was a game-changer. I tracked down a photographer who shot for major brands, and while it felt like a huge expense at the time, those photos are still used in our pitch decks and website today. It helped us look and feel like an established brand, which is crucial when pitching to major retailers.

Any major cringe moments from the early days?

So many! The initial branding I did myself was particularly rough - I put triangles as dots on the i's and used this aggressive pink and red colour scheme. Having that amateur-looking stand at the Balance Festival is definitely a cringe moment, but you have to go through these stages. If you don't look back and cringe, you probably aren't growing enough.

What advice would you give to early-stage founders?

1. Test your idea and iterate - speak to as many people as possible

2. For CPG products, make it feel as polished as possible early on

3. While there's value in getting an MVP out quickly, you need a finished product that works from a margin perspective when pitching to grocers

4. Use LinkedIn aggressively for networking - it's been invaluable for connections, mentorship, and even fundraising

What's next for Mighty Slice?

We're currently closing a funding round and aim to become ubiquitous across supermarkets in the next 12-18 months. We've got some exciting NPD in the pipeline that goes beyond cheesecake but maintains our core principles of being disruptive, delicious, and functional.

Follow Mighty Slice's journey on IG and TikTok.

❤️‍🔥 Resource Roundup

PODCAST: e.l.f Beauty are the ultimate case study right now and on this podcast, their CMO breaks down how they’ve become the highest-performing stock on the NYSE and grown 1567% over the past 5 years. So many actionable takeaways!

ARTICLE: In this Substack article, Emily Oberg breaks down exactly how she turned an Instagram page into her brand Sporty & Rich. Everyone should be aiming to build an audience pre-launch, and curation is one path you can take!

REPORT: Pinterest just released its annual trend report ‘Pinterest Predicts’. One of my favourites. Check this out if you plan to develop or refresh the visual identity of your brand next year.

Work With Me

I thought I would walk you through different tactics and how to get them right, all the way from beginner to expert level.

Beginner: Leverage Existing Communities

Instead of building a community from scratch, team up with niche, interest-based communities that align with your brand and audience. Run clubs are the obvious ones but there’s so many others.

Example: Represent’s activewear line Represent 247 has established its name in sportswear through partnering with and embedding itself within niche CrossFit communities.

How to get it right:

1. Partner with a community your audience is organically part of (doesn’t have to be directly tied to your product).

2. Have a story that links your brand to the community in a credible way.

3. Add real value before asking for anything.

Intermediate: Dedicated Space for Brand Fans

Identify your most engaged customers and create a dedicated space for them to connect with each other and with you. This could be a private forum, IG group chat, Broadcast channel, or even a Discord server.

The goal is to make them feel like they’re part of something bigger while providing genuine value.

Example: Peer-to-peer clothing rental app Hurr has a WhatsApp group for their top lenders where they can chat, share tips and help each other earn more on the app.

How to get it right:

1. Identify what your brand fans value most and figure out how you can deliver it.

2. Offer something they can’t get anywhere else.

3. Create regular touchpoints that keep people engaged.

Advanced: Host Exclusive Experiences

This means there's a huge opportunity for brands to host genuinely cool and interesting events based around their audience’s broader interests that create a stronger connection but also generate some buzz.

Example: Fashion resale app Depop hosts a bunch of different creative workshops, from embroidery to screen printing, in key cities around the world, going beyond just selling clothes.

How to get it right:

1. Create an exclusive element (e.g. access to unreleased goods)

2. Make it genuinely social to create a community spirit.

3. Give them something tangible to takeaway and remember.

✨ Expert: Give Brand Fans the Influencer Treatment

Think about the strategies you typically reserve for influencers and extend these opportunities to your most engaged customers.

This could include making them the face of campaigns, offering exclusive gifts, sending invites to special events, or even organizing brand trips.

You’re showing your appreciation while also encouraging people to increase their engagement by tapping into this “I could be picked next” mentality.

Example: Beauty brand Refy organized a community brand trip to a villa in Mallorca this summer.

How to get it right:

1. Use surprise to stoke anticipation and make people feel like they're always on the verge of something exciting.

2. Design for social sharing (e.g. gifting should have a cool unboxing experience).

3. Involve your community in making key decisions, not just the execution.

Wrapping up

Remember: Strong communities aren't built overnight. Start with level 1, nail the basics, and grow organically from there.

❤️‍🔥 Resource Roundup

TOOL: Viral Hook Generator GPT that has been trained on 1000+ viral videos. Hooks make or break short-form video content and finessing them can take time. Love this CustomGPT as a way to speed up the process and help generate lots of ideas.

RESOURCE: Compendium of 100+ trend reports for 2025. There’s stuff here lots of different categories (beauty, food, hospitality etc) as well as specific social media and marketing trend reports. Pick and choose!!

NEWS: New social media platform Bluesky is creating a fair bit of noise at the moment. This article dives into the commercial opportunity for brands right now and whether the juice is worth the squeeze.

NEWS: TikTok is connecting creators directly with manufacturers, helping turn ideas into custom products they can sell directly in the app.

Coming soon!!

I’m currently putting the final touches on something I’m super excited about - a TikTok Masterclass for Brands.

TikTok is the biggest opportunity for free growth for brands right now. So many brands have blown up overnight because of the insane virality that’s built into the platform.

As a result, I spend a lot of time deep diving into case studies, trends, and short-form video tactics. I’ve grown my own account to 10k+ followers within a few months, had multiple viral hits and am working with a varied mix of consumer founders to help them do the same!

As not everyone is in a position to commit to 1:1 consulting, I decided to package up all my learnings and create an comprehensive masterclass that you can work through at your own pace.

I’m offering a 20% discount to early subscribers, so if you’re interested hit reply and I’ll put you on the list!

More details to come soon!

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Last week, I posted a TikTok about starting a podcast where founders share stories from the early stages of building their businesses—the scrappy tactics they used to land their first customers and, importantly, how they coped with the cringe of it all.

The response was amazing; I received hundreds of comments from people saying they’d listen, so here we are!

I’ve decided to launch this as a newsletter to start. In time, I’ll add podcast interviews into the mix, all published on Substack.

The idea is to share practical strategies for growing a brand from zero, along with interviews where founders reveal their secrets.

My phase one story

Very much in phase one of posting content on TikTok!

Most of you have found your way here through TikTok, likely from my How to Build a Brand series.

It’s been 3.5 months since I started posting, and it’s gone better than I expected. While I haven’t amassed millions of followers (≈ 5k as of writing), I’ve come to terms with the concept of putting myself out there—and that feels like an achievement on its own.

I even went viral. Video #51 hit 1 million views within a week.

Since I know many of you are trying to grow your brand on TikTok—or maybe working up the courage to post your drafts—I thought I’d share a few things I learnt.

Four lessons from going viral on TikTok

The viral video about TikTok creator @m.iles and his brand Signet Sunday - you can watch here

01 Polarising or controversial topics get engagement.

Do with this information what you will, but consider this my formal warning that the comments section might not be pretty.

My video was about a posh, public school kid who works in finance and launched a brand selling the finance bro staple: quarter-zips.

Unsurprisingly, that rubbed some people the wrong way, but he also has a crazy loyal fanbase who showed up in the comments to fight for him!

02 There’s a difference between good attention and bad attention.

I got a lot of eyeballs on my content, but beyond a certain point, it was mostly the wrong kind. In my case, predominantly men in their early 20s. Fine, but it’s unlikely any of them are going to pay my bills.

At the end of the day, followers, views, and likes are just vanity metrics. Don’t fall into the trap of creating content for the algorithm. Focus on content that drives email sign-ups, purchases, and inbound requests—that’s the stuff that actually matters.

03 You either need an unknown story or a unique perspective.

In my case, I stumbled upon an interesting story that no-one else was talking about. I was able to simply relay that story and cut through.

However, if you want to talk about a known story, you need to find a fresh POV or some kind of unexplored angle to hit it from. 

04 Hooks and momentum matter.

Your video should have three hooks in your opening: visual, verbal, and text. And if you’re creating a video that is longer than 30-seconds, you need to implement a structure to maintain a strong cadence.

I have started engineering some of my videos around the formula “hook > value > hook > value > punchline” and have felt the difference.

TikTok is wild, post your drafts!

When you crack the code, the potential for virality and audience discovery is unmatched. However, building a community is a little trickier, as followers typically make up a tiny percentage of my views.

That is a big reason why I’m launching this Substack! Building a business can be lonely and the early stages can feel like wading through mud. I want this newsletter to be equal parts helpful and comforting. 

I’d love to hear your thoughts as I figure out the format. Are there any specific topics you'd like me to cover?

Next week I’ll be sharing a founder interview where I ask them to give us the tea on how to grow. Tell me what you want to know!

Subscribe now