Category — random thoughts

There’s a growing distance between the startup world and the web-copywriting world. As the Internet changes, marketing and writing change along with it. Especially for young entrepreneurs and for tech startups – the new school, marketing is about going viral. It’s not about sales letters, or search-engine optimization (I wrote about that a couple days ago), it’s about people liking your stuff, and bringing other people there (for the fun of it). Now, this isn’t to say that writing’s not important for the school… because it still is. Just that they need a different sort of writing. A sort of quick-and-clean copy that gets to the soul of the company, and hands it to the viral-visitor. No more… and no less.

Now, you’d think that the numerous copywriters of the world could do this… that they could write good startup copy. But, they can’t. Problem is that almost all of them are part of the old school. They’re still writing sales letters and press releases. They’re writing B2B stuff that’s supposed to appeal to middle-age secretaries, and 60 year-old executives. Not writing B2VC copy that’ll get a money-man excited about your product, and not writing good front-page copy that converts viral visitors.

The new school requires a new type of writing… the old school isn’t doing it. It’s as simple as that, and it’s sad too. Sad because a lot of new startups aren’t realizing their brand potential, and sad because I have to read the copy they produce without professional help (which they need). This blog is designed to help the writing be less-atrocious (or even good), and to help close the new school/old school gap. (Much) more on the subject in a couple days.