In January 2023 I started working at a venture capital firm.
Like most VCs, Ground Up has never had a creative department, so I needed to figure out where to begin.
Here’s what I’ve done in my first five days:
1. Before the "Curse of Knowledge"
How did I learn?
- VC glossary – the basic terms.
- Personal curriculum – I collected the best podcasts, blogs, books, and documentaries. Find them here.
- Job shadowing
- Competitor analysis
- Meeting with other VC marketers.“A meeting’s success is measured by whether it leads to another meeting.” – my best friendSo whenever I speak with someone, I ask them to connect me with another person from their network.
2. Curation System
After learning the basics, I needed a way to stay up-to-date.
So I curated a list of:
- Top VC people on Twitter.
- Sub-Reddits
- Newsletters
Then, I used Mailbrew to make sure that the top posts from these sources landed in my inbox every week:
Mailbrew combines the best of Twitter, Reddit, newsletters, and more into one email.
Click here for the full list of my favorite VC and startup resources.
3. Workshops
I invited the team for a positioning and storytelling sprint.
Use this template to run the session with your team or clients.
4. Content Strategy and System
After deciding on goals, channels, and other corporate words, I designed a content dashboard.
It includes:
- Content master – For writing and organizing posts.
- Prompts – Different types of content that work.
- Experiments – Creative ideas that we want to try.
- The hero – A reminder of the people we are creating for.
- Content questionnaires – Every month, I send the team members a written interview and produce content using their answers.
