The Art Of Finding Your Message (And Your Medium)
Four questions to guide the process.
In a world with endless content (and AI slop), how do you tell your story and stand out?
This is a question I have dealt with from three angles: career journalist, communications adviser and founder.
As a reporter, my stories competed with not just every other news story, but any piece of content a reader could consume. As a comms adviser, I craft pitches and narratives for clients to stand out against competitors in a crowded tech news landscape.
And as a founder, I do both: make stories you can’t get anywhere else for We Are Spiraling, and build visibility for the show and MAYURA, from scratch. (Thank you for supporting my work by subscribing to this letter!)
This past week brought two opportunities that reminded me just how connected these roles are. For a second year, I served as a crisis communications coach for Wharton’s executive MBA program. The students – executives and founders with full-time jobs, who fly in for class every other week – presented statements after being given crisis case studies. Then I grilled them as a reporter, and shared live feedback on where they could’ve sharpened their messages.
And The General Partnership’s Taylor Majewski hosted a panel discussion with me, The Information’s Cory Weinberg and Rebecca Ackermann, who edits Lenny's Newsletter, about how founders can get better at storytelling.
One of our biggest messages? Be authentic. And part of that is having something to say.
But you have to figure out how to do that first. This letter is about several practices I find myself repeating each time I am speaking on this topic.
