Finding my STANCE

A story of tough timing, fortuitous circumstance and incremental gains

This year, I took a leap into the unknown and decided to start my own business: STANCE, a brand consultancy and online learning resource for start-ups..

2020, the best year to start a business?

Hmmmm. Let’s see...

I kicked things off by breaking up with my girlfriend in February, missing out on a ￡100K project in Los Angeles in March, giving up my flat in lovely De Beauvoir and self-isolating in Somerset during April, May and June when Coronavirus kicked off.

The funny thing is, it all worked out rather well.

Let’s break it down.

Missing out on LA

It was almost too good to be true when an old colleague reached out to me on LinkedIn after I declared myself, “Open for business”. The project would have been ideal: the total rebrand of an exciting start-up followed by the implementation of a detailed Account-Based Marketing programme.

My ab-sol-ute wheelhouse.

Then along comes COVID, flight restrictions, lockdown and all the rest of it.

As it turned out, a blessing in disguise. Sure, the money in the bank would have been great, but this turn of events gave me the chance to consider the production of an online course.

But first, a film studio!

Developing a course would mean having a studio in which I could film all my own content. Again, isolation in Somerset to the rescue!

On the Monday before the first lockdown was announced, I missioned to Bristol and came home with 5 lights, a camera, green and blue screens and a lot of tripods.

At my Dad’s place in Somerset there is a building affectionately known as “The dog office” from my Mother’s truffle hunting days. This would be rebranded as “STANCE HQ”. 

Choosing the right technology

Launching a website is one thing, but launching a website + online course + email database + advertising platform is quite a challenge.

I developed my tech stack around Teachable, which would host the course, the website and the blog. As a bit of a jack of all trades, the course part of Teachable looks nice, the website is OK and the blog is somewhat behind the times. But hey ho, it’s a place to start.

I turned to Mailchimp for landing pages and email marketing and began working on a 'mini brand positioning course' to get the measure of my software jigsaw.

Developing a process

The STANCE Method really has two parts:

Part 1:

The first part is a fairly well-known research formula that entails observing your customers, competition, market context and company strengths. I’ve been able to add some smarts to this process by leveraging the digital marketing skills that I have picked up over the years.

Where I have really innovated lies in 12 games and exercises that I like to play with leadership teams. These exercises have names like ‘Death Penalty’ and ‘Competitor Kiss, Marry, Kill’ and are brilliant at generating facts, insight and content for a brand story.

Part 2:

STANCE stands for Situation, Transformation, Attitude, Niche, Confidence and Expression. The idea of the exercises is to jump start the completion of the STANCE acronym. 

I’m very happy with STANCE as a name, a process and a deliverable—it ticks all the boxes!

Phoning lots of friends

While chipping away at the course I needed some clients to be proving my branding methodology. This happened very organically and there are some honourable mentions for sure.

Sammi Adhami for recommending Sarah at Convex to try a STANCE.

Ian McCaig for introducing me to Cameron at Trackstack and Steph and Shaina at Legends.

Graham Cooke for introducing me to Genie at MeMo.

Nikhil Shah for introducing me to East London Dance and also the Foundrs network that led to Runway East and Robin.

Lara Varjabedian for the connection to Common VC and the team at SAKU.

Alistair Fraser for introducing me to Alex at The Pass.

Avi Lasarow for including me in his COVID-fighting efforts!

Emre Baran for testing my course!

Each of these introductions has paved the way to another, helping me prove the STANCE process and create content for the main course, which would start production in August.

Developing my own brand

From clients, I often get the question,

“Do I need to launch with a killer brand?”

I would say,

“Yes, always, to the brand story!”

But if you are a B2B business with a smaller launch strategy, you can certainly afford to get out the gates with a lighter visual aesthetic.

This was my approach. I launched STANCE with some meagre branding, but quickly upgraded to what you can see online now. The benefit here was that I could peace together my tech stack without having to wait for fully designed assets.

After everything was built, I turned to tried and tested friends for a facelift, which is the current branding you can see now. 

HUGE shout outs to Anna Nicolo on illustration, Neil Southell on Design and Matt Macgill on editing and animation.

Making content

If you plan to sell a course, you’ll need some leads to sell to. I collect my leads through three downloadable assets, a product launch guide, a naming guide and a brand positioning framework.

I’ll admit to tackling these when I most felt like it, which was in the above order. But, if you were to think about it, you’d probably develop them in reverse order, which is how you most likely tackle them in real life:

Hone your story, name your company, launch some products.

Interestingly the naming guide has been the star performer with a CPA of ￡1.30. 

For an early-stage business with a fairly untrained advertising pixel, this CPA is GREAT! Hats off to Alannah Wood for supporting me on all my advertising endeavours.

Impromptu products

After I created a STANCE for Legends, I did a pro bono workshop for the boyfriend of one of the co-founders.

Interestingly I hadn’t really considered the workshop as a stand alone product, but the team at Home Vision loved it so much that workshops became part of my business strategy.

Lesson learned: Saying ‘yes’ to opportunities can really help you in the early stages of your business!  

Working on the big course

Making good on my goal to launch a DIY course start-up for founders and smaller businesses has taken all year.

Everything I have written about this far fed into the creation of 40 videos, 12 exercises, 4 modules, loads of zoom call examples and 3 in-depth case study break downs.

Until Jan 2021, people can pre-register for the course here.

It’s hard to stress how many little pieces had to fall into place to get this far, which is really the purpose of this article.

If you are thinking about starting your own business it’s easy to feel like your climbing Mount Everest at times. My advice is this: Create a plan, break it into chunks and start walking.

Some days I can only work on a STANCE deliverable from 8 - 10 in the morning. But I can tell you, at the end of a week, being able to reflect on those 10 hours makes you thankful you invested that time.

One last thing: The unexpected!

The purchase of my SONY film studio camera led to a great many unusual outcomes!

DNAfit, my last workplace, made a pivot into COVID testing that led Matt (the video editor) and myself on some far reaching journeys to capture the UK’s return to semi-normality.

We visited Premiere League football clubs, Rio Ferdinand’s house and I even had a ride in a chopper during Soccer Aid to deliver some COVID samples to Norwich!

I certainly feel lucky that 2020 has worked out favourably for me and the majority of people I know. If you are someone who has fallen on hard times, at the very least I hope you have had a chance to reflect on your passions and create something new.

Onwards to 2021!