Really psyched to share my conversation with Elan Miller.

Elan is the founder of Off-Menu - a creative studio that helps startups and VCs with design and branding. Elan has been in the scene way before it was cool. What I really admire (and frankly envy) is his capacity to read and write so extensively.

You can tell that he has really spent time formulating his ideas, and clearly his clients come to him for that same level of intellectual rigour.

This episode was shorter than usual, but the insight per word density was through the roof. Hope you enjoy!

Where to find Elan:

• Elan on X - https://x.com/elan_miller
• Elan on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/elanmiller/
• Off-Menu’s website (surprise surprise - its extremely well designed) - https://www.off-menu.com/
• Elan’s writing (really valuable for marketers / storytellers / editorial humans in tech) - https://offmenu.substack.com/

Really psyched to share my conversation with Maria LaMagna Morales.

Maria is best known for leading socials at a16z, and she's now building Press Publish Studio, a boutique advisory helping founders with content strategy and execution (without the bloat of a trad agency!)

In our conversation, we spoke about what she learned at a16z, her minimum viable content strategy for founders, why lo-fi storytelling is winning, and the traps founders fall into when they try to DIY.

Maria has been thinking deeply about this space for years, and I loved getting her take on all things social, and beyond.

Hope you enjoy!

Where to find Maria:

• Maria on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/marialamagna/
• Maria on X - https://x.com/MCLaMagna

Anna is the Head of Content at Scale Venture Partners, where she leads editorial and helps the firm articulate what it stands for.

In our conversation, we unpacked her perspective on what storytelling looks like in a world full of AI slop, why most founders feel stuck and what they can do about it, and how to build a personal brand that actually maps back to the business. We also got into how venture firms can use editorial as a wedge, not to chase vanity metrics, but to build trust with a very specific set of founders.

Anna is one of the most thoughtful people in content, and I had such a great time chatting with her!

Chapters:

• 00:00 Cold open
• 01:06 Anna's journey from journalism to VC
• 08:12 Storytelling in a wold full of AI slop
• 18:33 Why high quality editorial is still extremely valuable
• 20:06 Anna’s minimum viable content strategy
• 37:13 Attracting attention versus retaining trust
• 39:35 Common storytelling mistakes founders make
• 46:24 Marketing for meaningful outcomes
• 52:25 Anna’s content recs

Where to find Anna:

• Anna on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-shults-held-1975b768/
• Anna on X - https://x.com/ajshults
• Scale Venture Partners - https://www.scalevp.com/