Do you need a personal brand? Does anyone?
When you introduce motive to content, intent to promote or to monetize or to convert, it becomes so joyless-- almost not worth enjoying at all.
I’ve now woken up twice in the middle of the night, tip toed to my office, and rabidly *unscheduled* a Substack that was set to send early the next morning. Even in my sleep, there’s a niggling subconscious that says “Wait! That letter isn’t good enough to send yet!”
What is that? I get so many Substacks a day where people are like “Hey, do you like these pants? They’re cool. Here’s a book I read.” Not every email needs to be my Magna Carta, but I do think that— the fact that people hit send on not much more than a shopping list— is the very reason I like to at least get within spitting distance of a well written, tight and coherent letter each time I hit send (or schedule).
I was catching up with my friends Nate & Lisa last week and they were speaking kindly to me about my newsie and we were discussing some of my ambitions— some of the spaces I want to grow into in this next year— and how this newsletter has never felt like the right vehicle to discuss, explore or, perhaps more aptly said, promote those ambitions.
It’s not about me— not at all, actually— more so that it feels like almost every form of content online (and many offline) exists solely to promote something. Subscribe here! Click this! Buy this! Follow me! Sign up for my class! Book an hour with me! Become a paid subscriber!
This is one corner of the internet where I am not trying to promote anything. And that’s kind of awesome. And that makes it kind of special. Some of my favorite Substacks (like
and ) have that quality too— no affiliate links, just thoughtful people with interesting insights who are baring their soul so there may be some connection between the two of you.Creating “content” for the sake of the content is so rare in my industry in particular. I actually lose more subscribers than I gain every single send— this is truly a labor of love. I write because it feels good to me and sometimes it feels good to some of you to see pieces of yourself reflected back to you on the page. I write the same thing to you as I do if there were ten or two hundred of you reading, much less ~ten thousand. I actually die inside a little bit when I think about how many strangers read this, and how many people I know but I am not actively thinking about as I write— this is probably why I am waking up in the middle of the night to unschedule my own scheduled newsletters: the anxiety of it.
Growing into a new thing, phase of my career or side hustle is a beautiful thing. It’s great for me. I want to honor that! But I’m hesitant to do it very much here, mostly because of what Nate and Lisa and I really nailed last week on hour 2 of happy hour: the second you introduce motive to content, intent to promote or to monetize or to “convert”— the integrity and soul of the content is disrupted. That’s all well and good (Nate himself writes a monetized newsletter! It’s a great read on the consumer industry and a round-up of things to know! You can read it here.) but it feels antithetical to what we I do specifically here— I write honestly, sometimes painfully, about failure, getting back up, and recovering from your ~first rodeo~. (Meta to mention the name of the newsletter in the newsletter.) It feels borderline spammy and LinkedIn-fluencer-y for me to start trying to profit off of my processing and pain— and yours!
I thought this was worth discussing here. Never say never! I have a job, so I currently have no need to pay-gate my Substack to make a living. To be totally honest with you, even if I did, it wouldn’t be a meaningful amount of money. I’ve done the math.
That could change, and I also understand Substack generally only makes paid Substacks discoverable in their app— so it’s possible I do eventually add a cheap paid tier and additional paid-only newsletter send, and decide I care about growing my newsletter. But right now, it all sits a bit funny with me, and I suspect strongly it’d sit quite funny with you too if I started promoting my services.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with a reader and former founder transitioning into a new chapter/job search— we hopped on a call last week and she had a few questions and thoughts about building a personal brand. Do you need one?
I have had a messy mental map of the “personal brand” for years, and I think you can see that embattled perspective play out quite clearly in the ways I use Instagram. I have one account that I schedule posts on and has a good amount of followers but no engagement. My purpose there is unclear. I love posting to my personal, but I have to keep the app deleted off my phone because I don’t know how to have a healthy relationship with it. It’s all a little one foot in, one foot out. When I was a founder, I felt like I had to keep both feet in every second of every day— any potential I had to make my business successful by being relatable was potential I had to take advantage of to try to survive. When your relationship to content becomes less about survival, it no longer becomes live or die— what happens to it? Do you still “need” a personal brand?
Something funny happened though when I was on the phone with this reader and opened my mouth to answer her question: even though in my mind, the topic felt messy and sticky, out popped a fully baked and coherent point of view about the whole thing.
I told her I actually don’t think it needs to exist for regular, non-founder, non-celebrity people. If you want to create simply for the sake of creating, as I do with you here, create, dammit! If you’re creating with ulterior motive: success, getting to 1M TikTok followers, having a brand notice and then hire you, then good luck. I really do believe the people consuming your content can smell your intention. We as a society watch a lot of content— we’re good at sussing it out now. The vibe comes through. If you’re just here to get famous or make money or advance yourself, that doesn’t usually read as art worth consuming. I hate to use the word authentic, but that’s exactly what I mean.
Most shots on goal miss! Most start-ups and entrepreneurial projects fail. If you’re going to take a shot, even as a side hustle or hobby, make sure you are doing what you’re doing because you really love it and not because you think it will make you popular, rich or famous. Besides that fact that you’re more likely to be successful that way, you’re also just going to enjoy the process more.
At the end of the day, what they say is true: it’s about the journey, not the destination. That couldn’t be more true about start-ups and side hustles either— there is no end in sight. Be sure you are doing it because you love it.
This piece from Vox on the personal brand is probably the most apt I’ve seen yet— and I couldn’t agree more. They address the phenomenon so much better than I possibly could here, but I will tell you that watching our society morph into people who are always talking into the front camera screen of their phones is yucky to me. (And I’m someone who had to do that!)
When I was 22 or 23 I suddenly found out I had a new, older male boss. He was an iconic traditional ad salesman who had worked at Playboy and somehow wandered his way into the women’s media world— if you’re reading this and you know who he is, I know you’re smiling to yourself. We were so different, I was fully prepared to hate him, which I told him in our first 1:1. He ended up being the best boss I’ve ever had, and probably the best male friend I’ve ever had. (Don’t get me wrong: we were constantly at each other’s throats! But he made space for me to be that blunt or honest with him in a way no other leader ever has.)
One of the wisest things he told me as I grew into more senior roles and walked into bigger board rooms, asking for bigger and bigger amounts of money, was to just be myself. He told me to wear the Vans and the baggy jeans to the meeting. Wear my favorite Budweiser t-shirt. Show up as I am. People will notice and remember and respect you more for it, he told me. It felt like a relief to not cosplay businesswoman, and he was right: I stood out to the right clients for coming as I was and not as what I thought they’d like.
I try to carry that through today when I move in this new consumer world I now live in. When I attend networking events or founder happy hours, I show up as I am. No bullshit. No faking. The popular founders you see on social media don’t always want to talk to me. That’s okay though— the little network and community I’ve built know who I am, how I am, and what kind of work I do. That, to me, is my personal brand. It’s very old fashioned, if you think about it, it reminds me of the post-war industrial era: work hard and be nice to people. That’s it, that’s the ethos. Be yourself, be kind, be of service, do what feels right and interesting to you and nothing else. The rest will fall into place.
Now onto sillier pastures.
I’m beginning to fear that my Stanley cup is going to give me lead poisoning, now that I’ve just found a chip of its paint on the coaster on my desk.
Now if I do die of lead poisoning, I suppose you could say I went willingly, having bought into the Stanley cup phenomenon with great gusto (what can I say— I love reusable cups).
A few things that definitely won’t give you lead poisoning:
55 observations from taking a year off from work, for those of us who can’t actually take a year off from work but are desperate to know what that’s all about. I loved this, it felt so beautiful and sweet. If you figure out how to save up to take a year off from work, please call me. I’d love to know your secrets. (I’m guessing “spend life savings starting company” is not on your list…)
The Atlantic broke down why recycling will never work. A lot of you went kind of feral for my last newsletter about sustainability. The eco warriors showed up, lol. Thank you to Adrienne from Koala Eco for treating me like an influencer and sending me a bunch of their amazing soaps and homecare products. I really think brands should do this more— gift regular people, people connected in your industry, people with not huge audiences— they don’t expect it and it goes a lot farther/means a lot more to them than influencers who get a ton of boxes. I’m sorry to disappoint, but sustainability is no longer my beat— I don’t have a ton of value to add there, and all the rhetoric reminds me of a time in my life that was hard and I am not over. I recognize I am biting the hand that feeds me here, but I’m sure you’ve noticed that I am not writing about dairy digesters and farming bivalves and our recycling system here. My background is in commerce, I tried my hand at commercial sustainability, I failed. I will write more about that journey here, but I am not a sustainability writer. 💗
I recently discovered ‘s Substack and loved “Stop! Don’t hire a VP of Marketing” 1.) because it is a mistake I have already made the expensive way and 2.) because I have worked at other companies that have made that mistake too. I feel so strongly about this and am a whole-hearted advocate for fractional work, which I’ve alluded to in past letters. If you run a start-up and need any kind of fractional/PT/1099 support— I have amazing recs for you. PR, ops/fractional COOs, growth/revenue/strategy, brand marketing, editorial/content… my deck is stacked here. Email me. Don’t make a big mistake and hire full time before you absolutely need it or your business is going to implode. I also loved Hema’s piece on why your CMO wants to quit (though I think you could insert any other leader’s title into the “CMO” slot there and everything she writes would still be completely true).
Another part in my interview series with consumer founders, marketers and operators dropped last week. This time I caught up with the marketer behind the internet’s favorite brand, Fly by Jing, on growing from Kickstarter to Costco. Read this if you’re a consumer founder hoping to steal some of FBJ’s brand magic/strategy. (But also don’t compare yourself because comparison is the thief of joy and there is only one Jing. I’ve done similar interviews with the marketers behind AVEC and OffCourt.)
Snap’s new ad campaign is all about getting outside and being a person instead of watching other people’s pretend lives on your phone. I really liked it. I don’t know if it makes sense for their product, and I don’t know if they’re actually going to do anything about it. I’m kind of desperate to smash all the iPhones in the world and to get kids and young adults to touch grass. They’re unwell. We’re unwell! I think we see this sentiment reflected in the rise of apps that are oriented around “life, not likes” or “friends not followers”— like BeReal or Lapse. I really want to see a business try to do this and take on Hinge and the onlineification of dating.
I related to ‘s essay on giving up so much. She writes so vulnerably and I never miss a letter— she was an iconic force when I grew up reading Seventeen magazine and she’s an iconic force now. I felt so much of this desire to give up in the last two years and think Covid and cost of living have impacted a lot of women’s relationship to ambition. This phase kind of passed/is passing for me, but she put words to the feeling incredibly well.
I hope you kick today’s ass. Talk to you soon! xx
Thanks for sharing my post Azora and I discovered some new cool substacks after reading this post so thanks for that!
I relate so hard to all of this. I am a founder and I’m still kicking but I cannot for the life of me show up for my brand on social media consistently. And you know what, I think that’s ok. Hopefully it doesn’t bit me in the ass later, but it’s where I’m at.