Hey, starter! Read on for…

—Danny (tell me your biz dreams: [email protected])

👋 Thousands of business-builders around the world read For Starters every Friday. Thanks for being one of them. Learn more.

Ready for the world. For Starters subscriber Vicki Tan is a product designer who’s worked at the likes of Pinterest, Spotify, Headspace, Lyft and Google. She’s also the author of Ask This Book A Question, an illustrated guide to decision-making that we featured way back in FS #14. Last month Vicki gave a fantastic talk about how that book actually got made – it’s less about “how to make a book” and more, as she tells me, a “pep talk slash call to action for anyone that’s been hesitant to begin.”

Her argument, roughly: you’re probably already ready to make the thing that’s been sitting in your notes app.

So… get going.

But first, have a watch.

—

Marianne Olaleye assumed the email from Twitter was spam. It landed 3 months after she and her sisters launched Puff Puff Ministry, their West African doughnut brand built on their mom’s 20-year-old recipe. Why would Twitter be in their inbox ordering fried dough balls?

But it was real. Google came next, via a DM from an intern. Then TikTok, Peloton, Meta, Netflix, Trustpilot, and M&S. Across all of it, the sisters have sent exactly one piece of cold outreach.

Marianne credits storytelling for Puff Puff Ministry’s success – it’s the thread running through what she calls her squiggly career. So her next step was starting the brand storytelling agency JAIKU, and in September, she’s bringing together 60 people from all walks of life in a room in east London for JAIKU’s first Storytelling Summit, to ask whether stories can save us.

→ Below, Marianne explains why the story only *you* can tell is a starter’s last real moat, and what she means when she says she built JAIKU for her 60-year-old self.

💬 Hey Marianne! How did you get started in your career?

I’ve had a very squiggly career, which I’m proud of, because it’s shaped everything I’ve done to date. I started my career as a photographer. But convincing your Nigerian parents you want to be a photographer after university is hard. You have to go and do formal training. For them, a master’s degree was a rite of passage, so I did a master’s and entered the corporate world. I worked as an intern in communications for a nonprofit and got my first full-time job there, then worked for a tech company in social media.

💬 When did storytelling become your calling? Can you pin down a specific moment or job?

Storytelling’s been there from the very beginning, but my love for it was cemented at my next gig, at the UK’s Department for International Trade. I was in the press office doing government comms, working on campaigns like ‘Exporting is GREAT’ which you might’ve seen at the airport. I got close to founders and journalists, told stories of small businesses, and got them in the press.

Okay, there’s something really special here, I remember thinking. I realised I’m drawn to stories of people who are making the world a more exciting place. That was where I felt most engaged. It was always about people.

I tried to go freelance after that, but it lasted three months – I wasn’t ready yet – then I got a full-time job at the digital design studio ustwo. I was a job hopper. But job hopping taught me how to tell a story about anything. I could go into any business, find a really great story, tell that story, and reach the right people.

💬 Then came your brand Puff Puff Ministry – your first biz. That’s almost been a test case for how you do storytelling with other brands now, right?

Yeah, in 2020 my sisters and I founded a brand called Puff Puff Ministry. We make West African fried dough balls using our mom’s 20-year-old recipe. And I’ve done all the marketing for that business from the beginning. I remember early on we got an email from Twitter, and we thought it was a spam message because they wanted to order Puff Puff. We were like… why would Twitter be in our inbox asking to order Puff Puff within three months of us launching? That’s how quickly the business grew.

💬 And that was all down to brand storytelling? Word of mouth?

Basically, yeah! We’ve worked with brands like Google, TikTok, Peloton, Meta, Netflix, Trustpilot, M&S, but we’ve only ever sent one email outreach to a business, which was to Innocent Smoothies, to pitch to them. Every other business we’ve worked with has come to us. And I put that down to storytelling.

I’ve not posted on the Puff Puff Ministry account for a while, but we’re still taking orders and inquiries every week because of the story we told. I genuinely believe that if you spend time to really nail your brand story, your customers will do the marketing for you. Positive sentiment just spreads that way. 

For instance, when Google reached out to us, we had no idea it was actually Google because it was an intern who DM’d us – and she didn’t mention Google. It was only when we moved the convo to email that we saw she had a Google address! We were like, what the hell? You have to remember, at the end of the day, behind all these big brands are just people. 

💬 In this crazy AI era we're speedrunning into, what’s a starter's real moat? What’s defensible that only they own? I’ve been thinking a lot about this. It’s not tech or code – it’s literally just themselves and the story they tell about what they’re building and why.

The strongest brands are built on stories only they can tell. For us, there is no other company out there that can say that they’re a group of sisters using their mom's 20-year-old puff puff recipe. That story exclusively belongs to us. And that story is why these brands have chosen us, because they want to be part of that. It’s an emotional story. There’s a lot of heritage and love and connection there.

💬 So the insights you gained from Puff Puff led to you launching your own agency?

The growth of Puff Puff Ministry was huge, and the most popular questions we were asked, apart from, “How do you get the balls to be so perfectly round?” were, “Who does your marketing? Have you guys got a PR agency? Who does your content? How are you getting these corporate brand deals?” So I thought, maybe I can help other businesses. I always knew I would start something else. So that was the final push I needed. 

💬 I always love when people take internal processes from one biz and spin them out into a totally new biz.

It’s true – but I’ll also be very honest with you, another reason for creating JAIKU was that I’d hit the ceiling in my 9-5 career. Many women, particularly from underrepresented backgrounds, often reach a point where it’s harder to progress past a certain level. It’s the glass ceiling. Mine just came at a very young age, but other people might not experience it until much later in their careers.

So I think a combination of Puff Puff Ministry doing well, and hitting that ceiling in my corporate career, led me to think: You know what? I’m still young. I don’t have kids. What’s the worst that could happen? And I still think that. What’s the worst that could happen?

💬 Oh, I can think of some things! Just kidding…

Ha – I mean, yeah, I’m not going to lie: building a business is really, really hard. It forces you to confront a lot about your self-worth and value.

💬 Do you think businesses understand the craft of storytelling? We’re seeing all of these big storytelling roles open up right now at giant tech companies, which suggests they finally do.

When I was starting JAIKU, I knew how powerful and strategic storytelling was, but I had moments of doubt: “Am I going to struggle to get clients because they think storytelling is fluffy?” Agencies weren’t using that word in their positioning. So seeing tech companies coming out paying $300,000 for storytelling roles, I’m like, “Finally, thank you.” It’s the best, oldest business tool out there for communication and connection. Everyone needs it, whether you’re a tech company or a small business. So I always found it a bit weird when people would say it’s a buzzword.

💬 Tell us more about JAIKU.

There are so many agencies out there, so when I was starting my own, I wanted it to be different, even down to the name. JAIKU is derived from the Yoruba translation of Sunday – and Sunday is a day of rest and immortality. Rest is the peace of mind I want our clients to feel knowing that we care about their brand as much as they do. Immortality is the lasting value we want to create.

💬 Can you walk us through how the biz is structured? You take on clients, you hold workshops, you run events…

We do brand strategy, content strategy, social media strategy, copywriting, impact reporting, work with brands on campaigns, and run workshops and events. The vision is to build a world where every brand understands and cares about the value of human-centered storytelling. It’s about teaching brands how to do that. Not every business can afford an expensive strategy or agency, but many people can afford to come to the British Library where I host workshops, or come to one of my events in London. It’s about democratizing storytelling knowledge and helping people build storytelling confidence, too. 

💬 Workshops also seem like a great customer acquisition strategy. A top-of-funnel thing.

Yeah, workshops are a great way to earn trust from brands who want to work with JAIKU, because it’s a more affordable way to see what we can do before committing to a larger project. I’ve always wanted workshops to be a part of what we do. I love teaching. I get a lot of satisfaction from speaking to someone and, at the end of the call or coffee, they tell me they’ve gained more clarity or better ideas.

I built this business with my 60-year-old self in mind. Longevity was always part of the plan. And workshops are what I see myself doing when I’m in my 60s.

💬 Can you talk about the storytelling summit you’re hosting in September? What are you hoping to accomplish, who are you looking to attract?

It’s been a journey. I had the idea back in 2024, but I was scared because I imagined my first summit being hundreds of people in a massive venue, panels from 9am to 6pm, dinner, cocktails, etc. But that all just felt too big. This whole thing is also self-funded. Honestly, it’s terrifying. The moment I paid for the venue, I felt sick to my stomach! But I’m so excited.

The idea is to bring together unexpected perspectives that you’d normally not find in the same room. For instance, intergenerational storytelling – different generations in advertising and campaigns across fields like beauty and finance. I’ve also noticed a lot of brands and marketers talking about world building, but marketers very rarely hear from urban designers and game designers who do world building but in a different way. 

So the idea was, what can we learn if we're able to come together and listen to people who are not from the same industry or don’t have the same perspectives as us? This is similar to an event I host called live marketing ideation, where we bring together different kinds of people. In a recent one, we had solicitors, dancers, psychotherapists, recruiters, founders, property people, marketers, etc. There’s a breadth of people. That’s what I want this summit to be, because a lot of us are stuck in our own industry bubble.

💬 I love that.

Sometimes you go to events and everyone on the panels all say the same stuff and agree with each other. You leave realizing that you haven’t learned anything new. If you’re lucky, you get a chance to ask a question, but you probably don’t because everything runs over! So you’re like, okay, I’ve just spent all this money and wasted hours of my life that I could have spent catching up on work. I’m personally sick of that. So I wanted to create something quite fresh. I’m always learning from these unexpected places. ☼

Grab early bird tickets to the JAIKU Storytelling Summit. It’s on Thursday 17 Sept at Second Home Spitalfields, in London. See you there.

—

Maker’s fee 💰 → Watch auction platform Marteau & Co guarantees a fee for the original maker: “We believe these watchmakers deserve to benefit every time their work is sold from one collector to the next. That’s why we are proud to introduce the Maker’s Fee, ensuring that makers are involved in every transaction.”

Taverns, everywhere 🍺 → Why restaurants “are dusting off ye olde moniker, partly as a way to mask their ambition.”

No influencers! 👎 → Are influencers banned from this antique shop? “I feel sometimes my store is used as someone’s background, a stage.”

Orange coffee 🍊 → The drink of the summer? (But it’s really old: “The mazagran, a drink of sweetened coffee, cold water and citrus juice, is believed to be one of the first iced coffee drinks. It’s named after the Algerian city where it originated in the early 1800s.”)

How do you do, fellow kids? 🤢 → Why brands using Gen Z slang are cooked.

Zugunruhe 🏃‍♀ → The restless sign that something needs to change.

To stay at this hotel, you need to write a letter ✍ → “To book your stay at El Elevador, please send us a handwritten letter. Tell us what inspires your visit and what you hope to find here. Every handwritten letter we receive will secure a reservation.”

The Missed Connections Booth 💑 → “A mysterious new photo booth… in the village in New York City. If you take your picture there, it'll print two strips: yours, plus the photos of your missed connection – your best match out of everyone who's ever sat in that seat before you.”

—

Seth’s Riffs — “Kernels, notions and riffs from Seth Godin. Vote for your favorites, dive deeper, please share. Do work that matters.”

Naming Names — “A great name resonates on an intrinsic level while evoking imagination and interest. Verbal identity and brand naming expert Tom Heesom tells us where and how to look for inspiration.”

How to make something people (actually) give a shit about. Westenberg

The story behind Present & Correct, the perfectly curated stationery shop that’s every graphic designer’s dream. It’s Nice That

How Chase Sinzer Is building New York’s most exciting restaurants. Swurl

A dying art: the last of the morticians. Harper’s

Please use AI. The Courage to Live It

5 unexpected ways I make enough money to survive while ridiculously ill. Imperfect Working Order

Claude Opus 5 became downright ruthless when tasked with running a vending machine. TechCrunch

Off a back-road Texas highway, an outsider artist builds his wonderland. Texas Monthly

11% — The YoY sales growth of fabrics at Liberty department store in London. Pretty cool: “The rising popularity of crafts such as quilt making and crochet has been partly driven by social media demonstration videos on TikTok, Facebook and Instagram, as well as crafting TV programmes.”

Designers and artists have zhuzhed up the euro banknote – and one of these proposals will soon become paper and ink. Design F’s got my vote.

—

1. Very cool to see For Starters subscribers / alumni Tiny Zaps (featured in FS Issue 4) getting the Inc. mag profile treatment. Congrats!

2. New subscriber Aylin Kosar is building a biz called Maiden Goods — it’s a “curated, museum-themed retail shop featuring items from independent brands around the world, with an additional focus on pieces people might discover and bring back from their travels.” Check it out.

3. Meanwhile, subscriber Lola Marseguerra is gearing up for a big career/life change: “I’ve always worked in hospitality, but have been doing so behind a computer for the past 6-7 years, doing F&B concept development and working as a freelance hospitality strategist,” she tells us.

“What felt like a massive flex when I started has started to drain me – I could tell I needed to do something with my hands again, so I’m starting a 4-month professional bakery course in France.” She’s focused on learning the trade of making naturally leavened bread, to weave it into a future gig in the southwest of France. Love it.

—