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- How to build buzz
For Starters is a weekly newsletter for the next-gen of small business owners. It’s written by Danny Giacopelli, former editor of Courier mag and host of Monocle’s The Entrepreneurs podcast.
Hey starter! Read on for…
Inspiration ➠ Donuts & bath bombs
Advice ➠ 5 ways to build buzz
Ideas ➠ Snail mail stories
Tools ➠ Customer loyalty
Community ➠ FS wins & shoutouts
➠ Get inspired
Donut shop or intergalactic portal?
01. Fever dreams. In the Athens neighbourhood of Psyrri, there’s a tiny new dessert shop called EteroLukumas that looks like it emerged fully-formed from the fever dreams of an architect on a psychedelic trip – in a good way. Inside? Ice cream and loukoumades, i.e. Greek donuts. The space was created by Greek firm 314 Architecture Studio. More shopfronts like this, please!
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02. Made with rice. In other critical donut developments, a bunch of Japanese rice farmers who create incredible gluten-free rice flour donuts in a small town in Hiroshima have just moved to Europe. → Swing by Tamariya in Amsterdam and say hi! 🍩
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03. Good signs. Up in Manchester, Gregg Johnson is a maestro at painting signs for some of the city’s best indie businesses. Absolutely love his work. Related-ish: this giant retro sign outside the new Bar Ideal in Athens’ Exarchia area is killer. 🎨
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04. Creepy crawlers. In LA, Ali Guthy is launching a new consumer brand inspired by her 'lifelong fraught relationship with bugs' and 'utter lack of innovation in the bug care space'. (Btw, bug care ≠ aromatherapy for ants, but, you know, human products to repel them.) Check out Buzzie. 🦟
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05. Profitable pivot. Only a few years ago, Ashley Coiffard was working as a school nurse and her husband Gautier was a software engineer. Today, the two run NYC’s viral-famous L’Appartement 4F bakery, after turning their home baking side hustle into a thriving biz with two locations in less than three years. → Read about their daily routine. 🥐
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06. Bath bombs. Two siblings in Poland, Julia and Nick Dyzio, are building a bath bomb brand called La Bomba. It started, Julia told Konkeft, when Nick was hunting for something to do 'instead of working in a bank.' Yup, fair enough. 🛁
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07. Au naturale. And in Norfolk, England, David Pagan Butler makes organic, natural, chemical-free pools — ones you can swim in AND, uh, drink from (for real). His mission is to show you how to make them yourself. 🏊️
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➠ Starter wisdom
Alex Daly is the founder of comms+ agency Daly, co-founder of venture studio & agency Orchard Street, and known as the industry’s “crowdsourceress.” Below, Alex shares five ways that starters like you can build early buzz around your business.
Starting a business is a full-time job. Getting people to care? Also a full-time job.
The good news: you don’t need a massive budget or a big team. But you do need to be intentional; about how you show up, where you show up, and what you’re asking people to feel when they land on your work.
Here’s what I’d tell any new founder (including my past self)…
1. Make your website do the work
If you’re in launch mode, you might feel like you have to be everywhere: posting, promoting, resharing. You don’t! What you do need is a really solid website. One that says: “This is who we are. This is what we do. This is why you should care.”
At Daly, our website does a lot of the heavy lifting. It’s designed to feel like a whole brand experience: a visual portfolio of our work, sections dedicated to things we really care about (company culture, our team, our client wins), and a robust case study that shows what it actually looks like to work with us (we call this our Ripple Effect).
But you don’t need all that on Day 1. Start simple:
A strong visual identity
A clear statement of what you do
Copy that lets your personality shine through
A clear contact form / email
Let your site be the place that builds trust to start, making the journalist or partner or client want to learn more.
2. Start niche, stay niche. Let the NYT come to you 🙂
Now onto press. Everyone wants to go straight for the glossy feature. But the smarter move is to first reach your most engaged audience where they actually are.
Of course, The New York Times sounds amazing. And for the right business, at the right moment, it can be. But ask yourself: does your potential customer even read it? Or are they buried in a newsletter (like this one!), obsessively refreshing a design blog, or listening to a podcast with 12K listeners and a cult following?
Because it’s all about quality over quantity these days. And there is power in niche! A mention in a newsletter with 8,000 super-engaged readers can be wildly impactful. These aren’t filler mentions or consolation prizes; they’re the early, high-conversion hits that actually get people talking.
Also: big media is always keeping an eye on niche media. That podcast interview? Might get linked in a pitch deck. That Substack mention? Might get screenshotted into someone’s Slack. These “small” wins don’t just make noise — they ladder up to something bigger.
3. Make your brand feel real
When we built Daly, we didn’t just launch a site – over time, we built a whole brand world. And that included a very intentional swag program. A plush branded beach towel. Hot red Daly nail polish. A Daly-designed chocolate bar. Not because we had to, but because it sent a clear message: this isn’t just a scrappy little PR agency. This is a brand with taste, intention, and energy.
If you're just starting out, this really doesn't have to be elaborate. A simple business card that’s well-designed, thoughtfully worded, printed on nice paper can still spark a real connection. It gives people something to hold onto, and remember you by.
That’s how it happens. Not all at once, but piece by piece, something real enough that people want to share it.
4. And treat it like it’s real (because it is)
Let’s back up for a second. Before you think about press or partners or packaging – get your house in order.
A huge reason for Daly’s stability, growth, and success is because of a decision I made back when I first launched Daly in 2019. On Day 1, before we even had employees, clients, or an office, I started building the bones: foundational operations documents that outlined how we work, what we believe, and how we show up.
This is the stuff that builds trust – not just with clients, but with yourself. It gives your business structure and your brain space. It makes you better at showing up for the moments that do build buzz. Because the best PR starts with good ops (something we scream from the rooftops at our angel fund & venture studio, Orchard Street!)
5. Get yourself out there, too
While you’re out pitching the impactful media mentioned in #2, think bigger. Because some of the best buzz doesn’t happen online (especially if you’re not a huge fan of the social media machine). It happens over drinks. Around a dinner table. In the middle of a conversation that makes you think, Wait, you two need to know each other.
When you’re starting something new, one of the most powerful (and overlooked) tools you have is your ability to gather. You don’t need a massive guest list or an expensive venue. Just a handful of thoughtful people in the same room, talking about the things they care about.
We’ve hosted everything from group dinners to happy hours to team field trips — and every time, something unexpected happens. A new idea gets sparked. A client referral gets made. Someone texts you the next day saying, “That was exactly what I needed.”
If you’re early in your journey, here are some tips: invite ~4 people who you admire to dinner, and cover the meal; start a recurring group thread where people can drop asks, needs, wins, and weird ideas; host a co-working day!
Final thought…
Forget the algorithm. Forget “going viral.”
Buzz comes from linking and building. It comes from specificity, generosity, and making it easy for someone to text their friend about your company saying: “This is cool. Thought of you.”
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➠ Here’s an idea!
Pixels to paper → Launching in autumn is Journee, which sends personalised (parent-led/customised) stories to kids via wax-sealed letters. Using tech to get children to engage with analog mediums = very smart. 💌
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NonDē → Film producer Ted Hope’s vision for a new type of filmmaking: NonDē (i.e. non-dependent) instead of 'indie' (independent). Ted Gioia expands on the idea from a music perspective. 📽️
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➠ Toolbox
🛠️ Resources
→ I’ve got a 9-to-5 (you thought this free newsletter paid the rent? 😃) working on editorial projects for Mailchimp. (In 2020 Mailchimp bought Courier, the magazine I edited, and now I’m at the mothership). Here are 2 very solid and free reports published with the smart people at Canvas8: one on the science of customer loyalty and an annual e-commerce calendar for marketers.
📚️ Reads
The Monday Media Diet with Daniel Giacopelli. WITI (ahem… 👋)
Finding your paradise. Palm Report
Why you shouldn't give up on the creative industry just yet. Creative Boom
In search of the ultimate surf experience? Felippe Dal Piero is the man to know. FT (by FS subscriber Colin Nagy)
The Tinned Fish Backlash Was Inevitable. Taste
These Founders Just Opened a Brick-and-Mortar Front in the Streaming Wars. Inc
The Case For Idleness. The Contender
The New Nostalgia. Air Mail
🧠 Findings
20% → The proportion of people who report feeling lonely often, according to a new global study. 16 to 24 year olds are the loneliest (24% feel isolated). The good news? 63% of people who have profound connections with others feel happier. → Cafe owners, shopkeepers and bookstore proprietors can play a positive role here, no? AI chat agents… maybe not.
🙃 Fun
Let’s crowdfund $4,999,000 to buy this extremely famous house in Woodstock where Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Allen Ginsberg, George Harrison, Johnny Cash and Bjork made magic, and turn it into something just as cool? 🎶
A Rubik’s Cube Chair. Surely this is secretly funded by the ‘sit on the floor industrial complex’?
Japanese watches that look a lot more expensive than they really are. This one is only $55.
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➠ Our community
A call to action! Have a business you’ve just launched? A project you want to share? A job opening you want to fill? A juicy opportunity for the For Starters community? Get in touch: [email protected]
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