Hi founders and fellow VC Friends!
Thank you for filling out our community survey last week! If you haven’t taken it yet, it’s not too late! I especially appreciated your suggestions and kind notes in the “anything else” box ❤️.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming!
Each week we deliver one awesome person to your inbox. These are the people you need to know—the marketers, sales gurus, engineers, ops wizzes— who give your startup superpowers 🚀. The best part is, everyone is hireable on a part-time basis.
Here’s what’s on the docket for today:
Meet Edem, your video guru 📹
Get involved with Awesome People Ventures 🚀
A wellness perk 💤
2 FT hires for you 🤩
Recent features 🙏
Please meet Edem, your Video Producer & Creative Strategist 📹
I met Edem through one of my favorite video creators, Mykim. She told me that I had to meet Edem — and she was right! We’re working together on a top-secret project and he’s phenomenal to work with. Most recently he worked on a National Holiday Campaign for Footlocker. Over the course of his career, he has produced branded content, an array of commercial videos, and even a virtual conference. One little known fact about Edem is the meaning of his birth name. Edem means “God saved me.” Ask him about his story!
He's trusted by amazing companies like Journey Meditation, Saxx, Footaction, Floodgate, Joinery, and Artemys Foods (Awesome People Ventures port co!).
You can hire him to manage, strategize, and produce your video campaigns.
Respond to this email if you need some video help and I’ll intro you!
He kindly shared his content pro-tips with us ✨
Create content for each platform
Know your audience, their preferred platforms, and meet them where they are. The content you produce for Instagram, should look different than the content you produce for YouTube, Tiktok, LinkedIn, Snapchat or Facebook. Here’s some inspo:
Facebook is the most family-friendly social media platform. Depending upon your goals, advertising a video on FB can be highly targeted and inexpensive. Sendacake leaned into FB’s strengths and highlights kids’ unboxing videos. FB already does a good job of reminding you of family members’ birthdays, so why not Sendacake to celebrate?
Instagram is all about aspirational content. Consider working with trusted influencers who represent your customers and community. Current, a banking app that serves communities of color is aggressive with this strategy. They consistently feature large and small influencers like iamzoie, lesdomakeup, and daviddobrik. These influencers have millions of eyeballs and ~10% engagement rates. If you have an extra $10k-$20k laying around, you can hire influencers with high engagement rates (>3%). While a costly game to play, it can be extremely effective.
Youtube is the second most used search engine. Treat YT like SEO and create videos that answer your users' frequent questions. For example, Artlist begins their ad by asking video creators like me, “looking for the best music for your videos?”Just like that, I’m using their music library!
Find a reference video
As one of my favorite mentors says, “imitate before you try to originate.” After you decide on your video platform, gather reference videos from successful creators for inspiration.
Back in 2019, I worked with a men’s underwear brand. We wanted to engage our audience with a real-talk interview series. After hours of YT rabbit holes, we found this reference video. From there, we developed Curveballs, a series of real conversations with real men in their underwear. No scripts, no egos, no questions off-limits. Since its launch, the series has remained one of Saxx’s highest engaging posts online!
For Joinery, we borrowed Vogue’s “73 questions with” series. Joinery helps renters make money when they move out. Their offering was difficult to explain. The outgoing tenant meets with potential renters to show the apartment. In exchange, when the new renter signs, the outgoing tenant gets a small commission. Yea, I know... it’s kinda complicated. But we had to do it — and do it in a fun and cool way. We reached out to entertaining NYC influencers renting out their flats and created videos of them touring their places and giving us the scoop on their neighborhoods.
Tap into culture
No matter your product or service, you must have a pulse on culture. Cultural relevancy is a competitive advantage. Cultural relevancy makes your brand memorable, engaging, and part of the larger conversation. Here’s an example from Geico. In the video, Geico leverages DJ Khaled's motivational speaker persona. We don’t usually think about insurance as being part of ‘culture,’ but they nailed it!
Bonus: tactical tips
Organize and repurpose: when you hire a freelancer, be sure to collect the video and audio files, in addition to the final edit. Build a solid archive of your creative assets. You can repurpose content to tell different stories on a budget. Checkout this Manscape ad and Just Eggs’ entire video library. They do a great job at this.
Use free resources: Canva and Boosted both have great stylistic video and graphic templates.
Document don’t always create: you don’t have to overly produce everything that’s on your channel. Behind the scenes shots from commercial video productions are super popular. These tease your audience and give them a glimpse into the inner workings of your company.
Want to chat with Edem about a project? Respond to this email and I’ll connect you!
As always, let me know if you have any questions and if you want an intro to any of the folks in this email (including the PS section 🎉).
Stay awesome,
Founder of Awesome People and Awesome People Ventures
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Get involved with Awesome People Ventures 🚀
Two offers for you!
Many of asked to get more involved with Awesome People Ventures. Good news! You’re officially invited to join our diligence and first look community. Please fill out this Airtable so I can send you cool companies that match your interests and expertise. I’d love your feedback on stuff I’m looking at. Depending on the round, there may be space to co-invest too.
Join the Awesome People Ventures syndicate. Our portfolio companies are growing fast. Sometimes we have opportunities for community members to invest alongside us. Join the syndicate to see upcoming hot deals 🚀. I hear one of them is making diamonds out of thin air and already has $1M+ in presales 😉
Wellness Perk 💤
Last week we shared this magic link to skip the Levels waitlist. This week we’re sharing a promo code for 10% off Eight Sleep. The more you sleep, the more productive you will be. There are gazillions of other benefits to sleeping like reducing your risk of stroke, heart attack, diabetes, depression, weight gain, inflammation… the list goes on.
Use the code AWESOMENEWSLETTER for 10% off an Eight Sleep Pod or Pod cover. If you’re an Awesome People Ventures founder, email/text me directly and I’ll hook you up with something even better 🙏.
Two Full-Time Hires 🤩
Head of Product - A good friend, former founder (with a successful exit), and beloved product leader is looking for their next thing. Are you post-PMF, Series A+, and looking for a Head of Product? If so, let me know and I’ll send their info your way.
Engineering leader or technical co-founder for a climate co - Ryan Barrett is looking to transition out of Color and into climate tech (don't worry, the team knows and is supportive!). He's an incredible software developer and interested in things that have a high impact. He's most interested in reducing supply chain emissions and monitoring and measuring carbon. He’s most interested in companies with 10-100 people. Feel free to reach out to him directly!
Most Recent Awesome People 🙏
Sarah - Interim head of marketing. Sarah was an early employee at Uber (~ employee #100!) and was there for 7 years. She wore many hats across marketing, brand, and product.
Kevin - Cybersecurity consultant. Kevin has helped tech startups pass critical security audits for enterprise sales and conducted security assessments for highly regulated Fortune 500 financial services firms.
Jasmine - Blog post writer and content strategist. She's trusted by marketing leaders at Zapier, Patreon, and Shopify for blog content and copy. Marketing Brew named her a top marketer to follow.
Want intros to anyone here? Lmk and I’ll connect you!
❤️ ❤️ ❤️