Blue Bottle Founder James Freeman’s Journey From Mozart to Cortados

Look back to San Francisco in August 2002 when James Freeman’s idea to start Blue Bottle Coffee began to take shape. You’ll see an uninspired professional clarinet player who decided to invest $20,000 to turn his hobby of roasting coffee into a business. It began with an espresso cart.

Sixteen years later, Blue Bottle has grown from that one humble coffee cart to 40 locations throughout the United States and Japan. (Last year, Freeman sold 68% of the company for a reported $425 million and remains the CEO).

So what does this the coffee business have to with design and craft? Freeman credits many of the skills he learned as a classical musician with helping him to form the identity of Blue Bottle. From the attention he pays to negative space in the physical cafes to the typography on the company products, Freeman created Blue Bottle cafes to be places where minimalist is clean, not cold, and utilitarian exudes a distinctive personality. As Freeman says, “Blue Bottle Coffee is recognizable not so much for what is there, but rather for what is not.”

99U recently spoke with Freeman at Hustlecon to learn about how constraints led to Freeman’s pared-down approach to branding, why the most noticeable design comes from taking things out, and how focusing on the experience of the coffee and the environment has led Blue Bottle to stand out in a crowded field.

Take us back to the beginning. When did you open your first brick and mortar store?

My first seven day-a-week shop opened January 23rd, 2005. It was a kiosk in Hayes Valley on Linden Street in San Francisco. It’s still there! We made about $300 that day, so there were a few months of not being sure if it was going to work out. We made every drink made to order, and that was very different than what you could get in San Francisco at that time.

How did you identify a need for what you were doing?

I was fascinated by what I was doing as a hobby, and there wasn’t anyone else doing it. I thought there was a decent chance I could make a living out of it, not to the degree it has been successful, but making a living out of it was good enough for me.

Did you have a master plan?

There has never been a master plan!

James Freeman photographed in the early days of Blue Bottle Coffee. Image courtesy of Freeman.

What were some of the early takeaways when introducing people to a new paradigm for something as normal as coffee?

People at the time couldn’t understand why I was opening a coffee place. There was the feeling that the pinnacle of coffee had arrived with Peet’s Coffee. Starbucks had been coming into town, too. I would get a lot of unhelpful feedback on how much competition there was, and how little chance I had in an environment people were calling “so saturated.” But I just wanted to do what I wanted to do! I wanted to make these very different type of tastes from Peet’s.

The general belief was that Starbucks and Peet’s were luxury products, so why was I charging more than them? There is a phrase: “The normative power of the actual.” You can think that certain coffee that you are used to is the finest and the best, but once you’ve had some different tastes, then those can seem normal. You normalize this new, more expensive, and more time consuming experience because you like what you are getting from it.

Blue Bottle has a different sense of craft and environment than Peet’s or Starbucks. Was that intentional?

Art is about constraints, right? It started out that I had a cart and a 250-foot kiosk and the freedom that those constraints gave me meant I couldn’t have a lot of extra stuff, so I had to be very pared down. But I also like to live very pared down. I don’t like things arranged on shelves, for example. Shelves are for books or dishes. They are a tool, not a decoration. But after working on 40 cafes now, we mostly think about what shouldn’t be there.

Blue Bottle Coffee is recognizable for what is not there, the negative space. The materials, furniture sets, and countertops can change depending on the region, but what never changes is the purposeful nature of the design. We like to have a variety of seating, but not much in the way of upholstery. It’s rare for us to have patterns, or tiled floors. It means that what takes people’s attention when they walk into our shops is what ought to take their attention, a focus on delicious coffee and a hospitable coffee professional to make it.

Blue Bottle Coffee cafes, where the shelves are tools, not decoration. Photo by Suzanna Scott.

All the things you talk about apply to the visual language of Blue Bottle as well, from the logo to the aesthetic production of images on the website.

For a long time I was in charge of every utterance and every image, but now there’s a team that does that and I feel they do a good job of making sure the color palette adheres to a neutral blue/grey that lets the pop of the coffee stand out. There are few words and hopefully the words have impact. The words are friendly and not aloof, and the typography is simple, but not pompous.

What was your strategy for going from coffee cart to corporation?

There was no strategy. When you are moving around 135-pound or 152-pound coffee sacks, typography may seem like a luxury. But if you think about the world, even on a coffee cart, shouldn’t every utterance and every image have some kind of meaning? Shouldn’t they reflect some important goal, even if not in an overt way?

I was always thinking about that. One of the handy things about having a background in musical performance is that it’s about that same through-line. Even the silences between movements have meaning that you want to communicate to an audience. How you take a breath influences how people interpret the emotional tone of what’s to come. It influences how you might play emotionally. That way of thinking was not foreign. Having to pack every possible sense of meaning into silences, as well as sounds, translates quite easily into a confined space such as a sign. What should the words and typography look like? I wasn’t an expert in that, but I was an expert in projecting an emotional tone and meaning from every possible utterance.

Does this go all the way back to when you had the coffee cart?

It took a few years for me to figure out what the right emotional tone, so I made a lot of mistakes along the way. But I was cognizant of those issues from an early stage. Those mistakes weren’t the end of the world. I would have preferred to not make mistakes, but they happen. Hopefully you learn from them.

That’s the great thing about coffee: It isn’t an art. I was prone to beating myself up for mistakes with music, and I couldn’t live with them. But coffee isn’t the same. There is no Mozart in coffee. You make a drink, and, if it doesn’t come out the way you want it, you ask your guest if you can make it again. The pressure was off.

What makes a Blue Bottle experience different from going to another coffee shop?

Our goal is to have delicious coffee made by a hospitable coffee professional. So the experience is: “How do we emphasize that and not let other things get in the way?” It’s hard because people tend to think about adding things, and doing more and more and more. Sometimes people can be very additive, and that’s where they struggle. Whereas my struggle the last few years has been where to edit, rather than add. That’s how I like to live. It’s personal.

At Blue Bottle cafes, the design experience is about removing, not adding, elements. Photo by Suzanna Scott.

It seems like you have taken everything step by step.

Yes! Nobody can predict the future, but if you have a MBA you think you can. I didn’t have to sell the vision; I just had to invite people into cafes. I didn’t have to say, “Oh this is what we are trying to make.” Show, don’t tell. That’s how the Nestlé thing happened. Our CEO Bryan Meehan knew somebody at Nestlé and their CEO Mark Schneider wanted to come see Blue Bottle, so Bryan took Mark to our stores in New York. It seemed like a good time to have an alliance with a bigger company.

When you formed that alliance, did it accelerate or change your mission, and how did you communicate that within Nestlé?

The main work to be done was to communicate it within Blue Bottle, really. Brian and I flew to every market to talk to our employees. The vast majority of our staff were trusting and the world didn’t end. The coffee still tastes good!

Nestlé is a patient company. They are 151-years-old, and they take a very long view. The challenge hasn’t been with the Nestlé people. Public perception can be solved if we do good work and the baristas are happy. The challenge now for the Blue Bottle team is that they have to demonstrate certain financial markers. I’ve had my tantrums over the years about things that I think are important to the experience too, but that’s my role. I can be unpleasant when it’s called for.

Today I’m more involved with the experience part of the business, but really that’s all I’ve ever been concerned about.

What are you most proud about Blue Bottle?

I think about that little kiosk I started 13 years ago, and I still see a line with people drinking good drinks. It’s in my neighborhood, so I go down there once or twice a week. The first Starbucks is all about Starbucks-ness; it’s like a shrine. I like that mine is still this kiosk, and nothing more than a coffee cart.

I also think about our Tokyo opening with hundreds of people lined up, and I like that we’ve been able to sustain an interest in Japan, and not just be the flavor of the month. We opened in Tokyo because I love Tokyo and its old style coffee culture. I was a student of it. People appreciated that we weren’t coming as conquerors.

 

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10 Ways to Lead a More Fulfilling Creative Career

We have gathered wisdom from some of the most iconic creatives on how to walk out each day and do what you love. Whether it’s Debbie Millman’s advice to invest in yourself or Amos Kennedy Jr.’s advocacy for setting your own values, these lessons act as a guide toward living a wonderfully fulfilling creative life. 

Play the 88-year long game.

We love immediate gratification and recognition. We want to be a prodigy and make the 30 Under 30 list. But being a shooting star isn’t the key to a lifelong career. Take abstract artist Carmen Herrera. She painted for more than 60 years before her work was widely recognized and, at age 101, her work was finally shown in a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The takeaway? Nothing says your creative career is over if you’re not recognized early on. Remember to play the long game. Even if it takes close to a century. As Herrera herself put it, “Patience, darling, patience.”

Carmen Herrera in her New York studio. Image courtesy of Herrera.

Pursue personal projects.

Louise Fili has made a career crafting understated and elegant graphics, first for Pantheon Books and then for her own studio, Louise Fili Ltd. But her advice for a fulfilling career lives outside of the workday 9-5. “I feel very strongly that every designer has to have his or her own personal projects,” says Fili. “Because it’s the only way that you really grow and find your design voice.” The designer started with an Italian art deco inspired book, based on years of collecting material for fun. That little book grew into a design series that led Fili all over the world. “You have to combine graphic design with something you’re passionate about,” she says. “I wouldn’t be the designer I am today if I hadn’t done my own projects.”

Fili in her New York City Studio. Photo by Franck Bohbot.

Make confidence a part of your practice.

Animator Floyd Norman has been in the business a long time—since the days when an animator’s top pitch priority was to make Walt Disney himself smile. But his advice to young creatives has never gotten old. The secret to a good pitch? Fearlessness. “If you’re hesitant about your work,” Norman says, “this will show in your pitch. If you feel like you’ve delivered the goods, then you can pitch with confidence.”

Floyd Norman started working at Walt Disney Animation Studios in 1956.

Think in systems, not pixels.

A brand isn’t only a logo you hand off to a client, according to MetaDesign founder Erik Spiekermann. A designer must take command of the big picture: strategy, implementation, a plan to put the pedal to the metal. “You can design anything, but if the rubber doesn’t hit the road,” says Spiekermann, “the client won’t call you again.” So, show up not just with color and a typeface, but a vision for how it fits into your client’s environment and business plan. That’ll put you right in the drivers’ seat.

Spiekermann in his studio in Berlin. Photo by Robert Rieger.

Act like you belong until it’s clear that you do.

President Reagan and President Obama White House Photographer, best-selling author, and Instagram sensation, Pete Souza, has his own twist on getting into ‘the room where it happens.’ The photographer earned President Obama’s trust while covering the then-Senator before he reached the White House. That might get him into the family’s Christmas morning celebration, but how about past security at G20 summits? “My approach was to sneak into rooms I wasn’t supposed to be in and act like I belonged,” says Souza. “I wasn’t successful every time, but it became a game to me.” His ‘fake it till you make it’ strategy eventually paid off. Souza’s Instagram documentation of Obama became so popular that ultimately, gatekeepers learned to wave the photographer in.

Souza walks with former President Obama.

Set your own values.

Master craftsman Amos Kennedy Jr. left a lucrative job at AT&T for the tempest-tossed road of starting a letterpress studio. At 60, the printer isn’t just an expert in type, he’s an expert in ignoring social pressures that whisper we must prioritize security, snazzy cars, and early retirement. “Personal responsibility is first for your happiness,” says Kennedy. “That freedom that we so long for is, basically, an ability to express ourselves and just be happy.” Where does that happiness come from? According to Kennedy, it lies in finding and following internal peace.

Sync your schedule with the work style that inspires you.

Sign painter Norma Jeanne Maloney has lived many places, but in every location, she schedules her studio hours like she’s in farm country. “I get into the studio at 7a.m. and leave at 6 p.m.,” she says. “Sun up to sun down, like a farmer.” The schedule isn’t just about an honest day’s work.  It reinforces the idea of Maloney’s studio as a handcraft tradesman’s paradise, versus a 24/7 graphic design mill.

Maloney in her studio. Photo by Matthew Johnson.

Respect the tradition while designing your own spin on it.

Mira Nakashima may come from a rockstar family of woodworkers. But instead of giving her an inflated ego, that lineage has given her a humble sense of tradition and respect for previously tried-and-true techniques and designs. The result? A craft that blends personal inspiration with historical knowledge. “One usually builds on what one has learned in the past that works well and resonates from within,” says Nakashima. “In Western culture, following a tradition is not a respected path, but in most Eastern traditions it is the only way to go.”

Nakashima in the studio with her father. Image from the Nakashima Foundation for Peace.

Pitch ideas you’ll defend to the end.

George Lois made a name with his big ideas (and bigger personality) across ads, TV campaigns, and the covers of 92 editions of Esquire. “Any problem that you get as a designer, a communicator, the answer has to be surprising, shocking, maybe outrageous,” says Lois. “You want to show your creation to anybody and have them go, ‘You can’t do that.’ That is the story of my life.”

Debbie Millman. Photo by Julian Mackler

Invest in yourself.

It’s hard to get behind any kind of spec work, much less paying for an opportunity. Debbie Millman’s design career was taking off when Voice America offered her a podcast show…if she was willing to pay the fee. But, Millman reasoned, the paycheck from her big corporate job offered her the chance to invest in herself. “If you aren’t able to do the kind of work that you want to do at your day job, consider creating something of your own…Think about taking some of that money that somebody’s giving you and invest in something that you can do for yourself to make a difference in your own life.” The investment had exponential returns: Design Matters has become one of the top 100 podcasts on iTunes.

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Design Debate: Have New Tech Innovations Made Work Life Easier or Harder?

In our newest design debate, Martin Lorenz, Marina Esmeraldo, and Fredrik Öst  weigh on in the impact technology has on creativity. Ready, set, debate.

“In a way, we were only able to become a studio because of the internet. We were able to work with people that we never physically met.”—Martin Lorenz, Co-founder & Graphic Designer, Twopoints.net

When we opened our studio in 2007, TwoPoints.Net wasn’t known, and we didn’t have any clients yet. It was only when we met some friends from Harvard that we started to get a lot of jobs from the United States. Without the internet, it wouldn’t have been possible for our network in America to grow, though, or for us to be able to design for U.S.-based clients while living in Germany and Spain.

In a way, we were only able to become a studio because of the internet. We were able to work with people that we never physically met. To this day, we still haven’t met some of our clients. 

We really don’t have many local clients; instead we have international ones – a lot in the USA and in Asia. These days, it doesn’t matter where you live; it’s more about the networks you enter. It helps, of course, that Lupi, Elio, and I speak English, Spanish, and German. This internationalism makes our job much more interesting. We learn so much from every client, and sometimes it is very surprising to see how our work is perceived in different cultures and contexts. The things that we design for clients in the U.S. are received in a different way from how they are received in Europe, but that’s sometimes the exact reason why they hire us and not a local designer.

Practically, of course, the design process is much easier today, too, especially if you’re working across different continents. Once upon a time, designing could be a real pain, let alone if you were working for someone abroad.

We share a Dropbox folder with clients in America and Asia so that everyone is always up to date. There’s no delay anymore.

I remember having to work with low-res images in order to be able to work quickly and efficiently, and then, before the files were sent to the printer, replacing them with high-res images. Sending files to the printer was a whole different thing too. We had to burn CD-ROMs and send them across the city with a messenger. Then the printer would return proofs, and if there was something wrong, we had to change the print files, burn another CD, and send it off with a messenger again.

Later we started to use FTP servers, which made life easier, but it was still a pain when you had to upload large documents. It could take days. Fast internet connections, Dropbox, Google Drive, WeTransfer, etc. made our life much more simple. We share a Dropbox folder with clients in America and Asia so that everyone is always up to date. When we are done, we just share a link with the printer. There’s no delay anymore.

For our clients, it doesn’t matter that we’re in Germany and Spain and they’re in New York, or Los Angeles, or Tokyo. It doesn’t matter that we have a team member working from Spain either – in fact, it’s especially good for us because we work with a great printer there. Having our team split across two cities isn’t a problem at all – it’s almost like they’re sitting at the desk beside us because of all the new technologies and programs, when in fact they’re on the other side of Europe.

The internet has become so common that we hardly even think about it anymore; it’s like an extension of the office. People don’t say, ‘Now I am going to sit down and use the internet.’ You’re just constantly using it. And it’s because it’s become so natural to the working process that international clients have been able to trust us, and that’s been one of the most important things that’s allowed us to do what we do. Being able to trust someone on the other side of the world with your design process wouldn’t have been possible 15 years ago.”

 

“The problem is that you have to be on social media constantly. I personally became very addicted to Instagram.”—Marina Esmeraldo, Illustrator

Consistent and long-term self-promotion through social media has been really crucial for my freelance business. The problem, though, is that you have to be on it constantly. The thing with social media is that it’s designed to be addictive. I personally became very addicted to Instagram. I became disillusioned with Facebook and Twitter because of all the political drama, and it felt quite organic getting off those platforms. But Instagram always seemed like the fun place to be, and it’s been hard to disconnect and reduce my usage.When the algorithm change was implemented, everyone started to freak out about whether their content was getting seen. All these ‘marketing specialists’ began popping up, who said things like ‘You have to post every day’ and ‘You have to use hashtags.’ There was this whole narrative about how you have to be on it constantly to get the best out of it, and that’s partly how my obsession started to kick in. I would justify that I needed social media for work.

I was using Instagram in the morning, on my breaks, and before bed. It was bad for my mental health I was never off.

And at every moment of pause, I would get on Instagram. It becomes a real black hole of time and energy. You tell yourself you’re going on to see what everyone is up to, to get inspired, and you end up tricking yourself into thinking it’s research. But really, it’s an energy drain. I was using Instagram in the morning as an excuse to wake up. I was using it on my breaks. And I was using it before bed. It was bad for my mental health because it meant I was always working. I was never, never off.

I began feeling really unhappy. I felt like I was constantly looking at all the beautiful things that other people were making and all the amazing trips that people were going on, and even though I was rationally aware of how good my life was, the brain often latches onto the negative. After a while, I realized I had to decrease the time I was spending on the platform. Because I was aware of the damaging effects, one day I just looked at my phone and deleted the app. It wasn’t planned. I needed a break. I ended up taking a 47-day detox.

My work improved immensely, and immediately. We are so connected with our peers and our history all the time that it’s easy to regurgitate what everyone else is doing. I always make an effort to filter influences, but after a certain amount of exposure, trends do trickle into your subconscious. The fact that I was making an effort to insulate myself gave new life to my ideas: I felt more original because I had to dig deeper. 

It’s easy to fill up empty spaces with noise, but the empty spaces are important.

During my detox, I remember waiting for a friend at the Barbican in London. He was late, and normally I would have just been scrolling through my phone, but I didn’t have that option so I went into the bookshop and bought a notebook and a pen. I went into the courtyard and started drawing lots of things. It was a complete revelation. It’s ridiculous in a way: I’m an illustrator and I studied architecture; we used to do observational drawings all the time. But I’ve become so accustomed to drawing digitally that sometimes I just skip the analog part of the process altogether.

Through that experience and others like it, I’ve realized that I need time with myself and without online chatter. As well as Instagram, I’ve been obsessed with podcasts recently, too, and after a while I realized that during every moment of silence I was putting a podcast on. Today it’s so easy to fill up empty spaces with noise, but the empty spaces are important. As a creative, it’s the time where your brain makes fresh connections.

 

“At Studio Snask, we create all our models by hand. People often say, ‘I could have done that with the computer much faster,’ but we find that building our sets creates a far more refined design.”—Fredrik Öst, Founder & Creative Director, Studio Snask

Digital tools have become so good and so ubiquitous that there’s a tendency to use them for every part of the creative process. That’s not necessarily a great thing, though: It might hinder your full potential. In the creative industry, technology today tends to be used as if it’s more than simply a tool. It becomes unanimous with all stages of the design process: a place for gathering inspiration, for sketching, and then for completing a project.

When I was at art school, my university told me that we weren’t going to use the computer for the first year. I was like: ‘What?! That isn’t how this is supposed to be!’ I had this assumption that all graphic design was made on a screen. Then I realized that the computer is just one of many tools. You need it today because you need to make things digital, but you can choose how much you want to work with it.

Who wants to be a machine, working as efficiently as possible?

At Studio Snask, we create all our models by hand. People often say, ‘I could have done that with the computer much faster,’ but we find that building our sets creates a far more refined design. We start all projects by sketching by hand, then we scan the image to get it into the computer and keep designing from there. Then we take it out of the computer again, and build it physically to photograph. Finally, we put it back into the computer to deliver it. In that way, the computer is just one step in the process and doesn’t dictate what we create.

For a motion video, for example, having a physical piece of artwork in front of us is a far better way of working. We can move elements around with our hands. In a 3-D modeling program, you can’t see the final outcome initially because you have to keep rendering it, which can take a long time. And even if rendering becomes faster in the future, for Studio Snask, moving physical elements is part of how we create. Who wants to be a machine, working as efficiently as possible? In creativity, you need the time to reflect. I don’t want to live in a society where art or music or film is produced within a few days, because that’s not how high-quality work comes into being.

Back in the day, photographers used to take loads of photos, and just a few would turn out how they wanted them to. Now, of course, we can be much more precise. But back then, unexpected things could happen. Now you have an image in your head, you look through the screen of a camera, and then you snap it quickly. It’s done. At Studio Snask, when we take a photograph, we first get the perfect shot and then we make the time to screw up some pictures for a bit. We do this because often something more interesting might happen that way. In these situations, the final picture that we select is often one of the messed-up ones. When you’re constantly looking at a screen on a camera to get the perfect shot, you might forget that you can also make mistakes, and that interesting things can come from that.

We always ensure that we give ourselves time for something we didn’t plan for. One must remember that tools are just one aspect of the design process; making mistakes – and playing around – is also vital. If you’re working with creativity, you have to disconnect in order to go back to things with fresh eyes.

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Does Your Company Need a Chief Storyteller?

One day eight years ago, Microsoft Chief Storyteller Steve Clayton figured he was going to get fired. In his time at Microsoft he had moved up from a systems engineer to the Director, Cloud Strategy based in London. There was a Microsoft blog back then that covered what Microsoft brought to the world, but Clayton saw the chance to tell stories about what was unfolding inside the company. So he started doing just that as a hobby. He was a pretty honest judge and that fair and balanced approach attracted an audience, including some Microsoft Communications team members who would say, “What are you doing? You’re not the official spokesperson for the company.”

But nobody told Clayton to stop so he kept right on writing because he had a passion for it. Fast forward four years and Microsoft’s head of communications finally said “We need to talk about your blog.” “And that was the day I thought I was getting fired,” recalls Clayton. Instead, the head of communications complimented Clayton on all of his work and asked if he’d like to move from London to Seattle and tell stories about Microsoft in an official capacity.

“When I arrived in Seattle I didn’t have much of a clue about what I was supposed to do,” says Clayton. But it became clear that the job was to tell stories about the company that start to drive changing perception around this company.” To start, the public relations team asked Clayton what his title should be. “I said a blogger. I blog at Microsoft. And they said, well we can’t call you a blogger because everyone is a blogger,” remembers Clayton, “They said they’d call me chief storyteller…the title came by accident.”

Today, Clayton manages a 30-person team that is responsible for telling Microsoft’s culture story, which includes everything from highlighting internal culture innovations on the Microsoft Story Lab blog, to developing the company’s AI communications strategy, to building tech demos for CEO Satya Nadella. He recently spoke with 99U about how good stories can result in good business.

At corporations, storytelling has typically rolled up into marketing. What’s the difference between what you do as a chief storyteller and a marketer or someone in publications relations?

I’m not precious about the job title “chief storyteller,” but I’m precious about storytelling. I think it’s become a term that people want to hear and sometimes I see a great advertisement or media campaign and people say ‘oh that’s storytelling.’ I admire those creative executions, but I know that wasn’t storytelling. This is probably too binary of a definition, but I tend to think storytelling has people involved. When I think about the storytelling that I’m most proud of that we’ve done over the last few years, it’s been about how our technology impacted someone in the world and made a difference in their lives and is much more around people, than it is around products. 

Give us an example of what that looks like. 

Sure. Yeah, we started this platform about five years ago called Microsoft Stories and the first story we did was called “88 Acres”—the codename for Microsoft’s original campus in Redmond, Washington. We shamelessly copied The New York Times “Snowfall” story that had published a few months earlier and showed us all what longform storytelling on the web could be. “88 Acres” was a story about a guy who worked in a real estate and facilities department – not an obvious place for a compelling story

But someone in our real estate department told me he had a great story about the person who oversees the 125 buildings on the Microsoft campus. And I thought that doesn’t really have the hallmark of a great story. Buildings. But nonetheless I went and met Darrell, who in the year prior had helped to build this capability for all our of buildings to be integrated, so it became a bigger story about big data and the Internet of Things. It had the hallmarks of a good story: this central character Darrell who went on a journey, and had a breakthrough and was successful.

We pitched it to a few media outlets and they passed on it, so we published story ourselves told over multiple chapters and, even though we weren’t selling a software product in it, the story generated real business. We had customers who wrote us saying they wanted to buy the software. We didn’t even sell it as a product back then but we turned it into a product. In 3,000 words, there is one single sentence in the entire story that mentioned the product by name, yet the day after we had a very big name customer calling up and saying I want to buy that thing.

A couple of weeks after that we had another product team came to us and said, “Wow, we loved what you did with that story. We’d love to do a similar thing with our product.” And we said, “Well great, let’s tell a story, what are the central characters, what’s the journey?’ And they said, ‘No we just want to tell a really good story about this product.” And we said, ‘Yeah, we get that, but what’s the story?’. As I mentioned earlier, that’s the difference with storytelling – it really does need to be about people.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella visits a school in Kenya during the launch of Windows 10. Photo by Platon.

Another story you’ve done is Empowering Kenya and the World with High-Speed, Low-Cost Internet that explores how Microsoft has helped bring the Internet to rural Africa. How do you strike that balance between covering an idea that transcends Microsoft Corp. with highlighting the effort of Microsoft, which isn’t mentioned until the eight paragraph in the piece?

The balance is actually easy to find if you set aside the typical motives of telling a story about the company or product and tell the story about people and impact. Readers are smart—they know if it’s Microsoft telling the story there is going to be something about our involvement in it—which means we can put that in the background as it’s already in the back of their minds.

Whereas product success can be determined by, say, number of units sold in a certain amount of time, it can be trickier to articulate the value of stories, and creative endeavors more broadly. How do you convey the value of stories at Microsoft?

I don’t think there’s any clear answer. On the one hand you can say, ‘Yes, this piece had a million page views’ but that doesn’t really do it for me. We love to see people picking up the assets from our stories, our web videos and photography, and those being shared. 

The other thing is a bit more fluffy: Does the story make me feel proud to work for the company? Is it likely that other people who in the company will feel proud to share that story in their professional networks. And so we do some measurements how these stories make people feel about our company—we don’t measure them on a story by story basis, but more so people saying, “That was a great story, I want to share it.”

So the value is the emotional connection with customers, not necessarily page views, conversions, and moving product units.

When I read a great story by a company, it doesn’t necessarily make me want to go buy their product right then. But it makes me feel better about the company because it shows they care about their craft, and creating something that is beautiful, so I start to assume that they put that same purpose into making their products.

I speak to lots of people at Microsoft who are in the business of selling our products. The job of my team is to sell Microsoft, and how does the work contribute to the brand of Microsoft and make people feel better about the company as a brand.

Companies typically have Chief Finance Officers or Chief Marketing Officer, but there are very few Chief Storytellers out there. With more and more brands starting to develop their own content, do you think we’ll see more Chief Storytellers?

I remember about three weeks into having this job title, Fortune Magazine got in touch with our PR agency and said, “Hey, you’ve got a guy called chief storyteller. We’d love to interview him because we’re doing this piece in the magazine around people who have impressive job titles.” When they published a few weeks later, but instead of it being interesting jobs titles, it was people with wacky job titles.

Then last week a friend of mine sent me a note that said someone on the BBC talked about how he just found out that Microsoft has this guy with the job title called chief storyteller and that seems liked a ridiculous job title.

Some people clearly think we don’t. But on the other hand, I did a piece on Cheddar TV last week, and they said they loved the job title. What it does is it gets people’s attention. They say what is that, do we need one? I do think we’ll see more Chief Storytellers as we move into the era of brands and companies talking about their mission and purpose—purpose over product—they will be inclined to take on more of their own storytelling about the company.

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Selling a Good Time: Inside the Wild, Wacky World of Minor League Baseball Marketing

Today, arguably the most effective branding in the world is coming out of small towns across America. We’re talking about those places like Binghamton, the Quad Cities, and other hubs of minor league baseball. The league of maybe-someday big leaguers is giving an experience a name. Its kooky marketing ways are branding “fun” in ways that any company–selling anything, even something as objectionably boring as minor league baseball–can use.

First, though, it’s important to understand the legacy of minor league baseball as a business. Historically, MiLB, as the stat nerds taking over baseball call it, was, on its surface, a lousy business model. Minor league teams didn’t really make money. They were money sinks. They were a place to develop talent. A big-league team like the New York Mets would own a minor league team such as the Binghamton Mets as an investment. Players in the minors today may be useful in making the team real money as a major leaguer down the road. Not anymore.

Yes, MiLB is still an investment, in the sense that professional teams develop young talent at the minor league level, but turning a profit in a place like Binghamton is much more important these days. The Binghamton Mets don’t exist anymore. But the Binghamton Rumble Ponies, a minor league affiliate for the Mets, do. They’re the same team, but they’re in the early stages of a marketing experiment, and they’re your teacher for the first of three lessons on how you can market, well, just about anything–even if you’re strapped for cash and talent and looking to bring some buzz to Binghamton.

Lesson 1:  Create an experience (not just a product)

The Binghamton Mets were sold to a new owner in 2016, and the owner, according to Eddie Saunders, director of marketing and promotions at the Rumble Ponies, saw a real lack of enthusiasm in the community. He did see people wearing the gear, but businesses in the community didn’t have signs up in their windows. This was a problem.

The team consulted with a rebranding company, Brandios, and developed an idea to get the community involved right from the start: Rename the team! The fan-generated team names boiled down to six options: the Bullheads, the Gobblers, the Stud Muffins, the Timber Jockeys, the Rocking Horses, and the Rumble Ponies. The last two pay homage to the city’s historical production of carousel horses. Inarguably, this is a more fun legacy to play up than other industrial naming possibilities, like, say, the Big Blues (IBM has played a large role in the area).

Even with this approach of letting fans have a voice, not every voice was one of support. “There were a lot of traditionalists here who said, ‘Hey, the Binghamton Mets have been here 25 years. Why mess with it?’” Saunders says. But the franchise still went through with it, and let’s just say Rumble Pony fever has hit this northern New York hamlet.

Last year, the Eastern League, the league the Ponies play in, had 15 rainouts, a record. Even with all those missed opportunities for ticket sales, the Rumble Ponies set a 10-year attendance high.

Saunders and his colleagues know the work is far from over. “Now we have to continue to build the brand,” he says. And with the new name, the Rumble Ponies’ story is about more than baseball: It’s fun for the whole town.

Let’s be honest, this  mascot is way more fun than Mr. Met. Also, the winning name was Rowdy. Image via the Rumble Ponies.

Lesson 2: Make that experience one of a kind

Some people get excited when a team’s playing schedule is released. But for the Charleston RiverDogs, the real excitement comes when they release their promotional schedule. Over the years, it has included such themes as “Prostate Cancer Awareness Night,” where all male fans could get free prostate exams (via a pin prick). Or the time the franchise turned their ballpark into a waterpark for “Big Splash Day.” All this leads to a natural question: What’s the connection to baseball? Nothing, and that’s the whole point. The goal is for there to never be a dull moment in a slow-paced game. 

“We want to create enough of a buzz that our stands will be filled with not just locals but those coming to town,” says assistant general manager Ben Abzug. “We target the homestands and try to get one promo per month that will get national attention.” 

Despite the team’s average record over the past five years–the RiverDogs have lost about as many games as they’ve won–annual home attendance has increased from 254,000 to 305,000, a 20 percent uptick.

Creating national attention isn’t easy, though, and trying to outdo oneself for absurdity is a challenge unto itself. Think we’re kidding? There was once an idea to drop a baby grand piano out of a helicopter onto the field. The groundskeeping crew mercilessly nixed that plan and gave us all a red line to draw on what constitutes going too far in the world of harebrained branding boondoggles.

Lesson 3:  Brand the experience (not just the team)

You’ve heard of Sunday Funday? For some, it’s a boozy afternoon to close out the weekend, but to the Richmond Flying Squirrels, it is now part of their identity. “Funnville is a philosophy of who the Flying Squirrels are,” says Jay Burnham, the team’s director of media, broadcasting, and marketing. “This all sort of started with the Lehigh IronPigs, which have become Bacon, USA. It gives the entire experience a name.”

Just as with the Rumble Ponies, when the Flying Squirrels started their process, half the community hated it and half the community was onboard. But as the team won people over, they were able to slowly sell Funnville (And, yep, it’s spelled with two “n’s.”) This means that on Sundays, the team forgoes its standard uniforms and wears ones lettered with “Funnville.” Don’t get us started on the game-day slogan, “Have Funn, Go Nuts!”

Have the Flying Squirrels taken it too far? “We’ve definitely gotten away from the baseball part of it and are now focused on the experience,” said Burnham. “We are here to sell a good time. The pendulum may swing back one day.”

Be it painting the upper decks crazy colors, doing a “Bobble Mustache Night” for onetime native Edgar Allan Poe, or having baseball legend “Crime Dog” Fred McGriff carry a lucky rabbit’s foot to the pitching mound on Friday the 13th, Richmond residents are getting what they expect. “We don’t have anyone asking, ‘Why are you doing this?’” says Burnham. “It’s easier now that it’s Funnville.”

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The First Five Years: What Should be in your Portfolio?

Getting started in your creative career is tough. You’ve got boatloads of ambition and energy, but you lack experience, the kind of knowledge that feels like you can see into the future because you’ve been there before. So we’ve introduced a new column that will allow you to get the benefit of hindsight before you’ve actually gone through the experience. Welcome to “The First Five Years” where Mitch Goldstein, a professor of design at Rochester Institute of Technology, answers reader questions related to the unchartered waters of beginning a career. This month, Mitch answers a question about putting together a winning portfolio.

What should be in my portfolio?

A portfolio is not just a representation of skills and abilities, or simply a checklist of things you know how to make. A good portfolio also represents your opinion on design, what you think is and is not important. It is the story about the relationship between you and design. Companies and clients do not hire a portfolio; they hire a person, therefore it is important that you are represented in your portfolio.

Mitch and his wife and creative partner Anne Jordan showcase book cover designs in their portfolio because this is the work they want to do.

Employers will see a ton of to-do list apps and craft beer labels in portfolios that come across their desks — what makes yours unique? Portfolios should have a few things: first, I want to see that you are capable of creating refined, clear, down-to-the-last-detail work in your portfolio.

I want to see excellent work, which is why you should never add sub-par work just to fill up space — I would much rather see five excellent projects than five excellent projects mixed with five mediocre projects. It is very important that you are able to clearly explain the hows and whys of each project. The portfolio itself might be what gets you in the door, but the conversation about what you did and why you did it gets you the job. Make sure that you are able to justify your decisions and explain your choices.

Julie Campell’s portfolio shows bright, visually assertive work that features motion and often references pop culture.

The first set of work helps me understand that you can do the job. Secondly, I want to see you in your work. This is why another key part of a good portfolio is work that is more personal, experimental, and possibly less refined or polished. If you have work that you are obsessed about, work that keeps you up at night, I want to see it. Do not let labels get in your way — it does not have to be “design” to be included, it just has to be something you care deeply about. What work have you done outside of your design classes? Painting, sculpture, photography…all of it counts if it is important to you and your relationship to creative practice.

Finally, you should include the kind of work that you want to do more of, and you should leave out the work you want to do less of. You will get back what you put out — if you do not want to design websites, don’t put websites into your portfolio. If you want to design more book covers, make sure plenty of book covers are included. Having a clear vision of what you want to do as a designer is important, and your portfolio should reflect that in its content. It is always obvious to someone looking at your work which stuff you care about, and which stuff you don’t care about. Part of having an opinion about design is including work that matters to you, instead of including work just because you think that is what you are supposed to do. Always remember: it is not just a portfolio, it is your portfolio.

Got a question for Mitch? Tweet it to us @99U and we’ll pose them to him in the coming months.

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The First Five Years: What Should be in Your Portfolio?

Getting started in your creative career is tough. You’ve got boatloads of ambition and energy, but you lack experience, the kind of knowledge that feels like you can see into the future because you’ve been there before. So we’ve introduced a new column that will allow you to get the benefit of hindsight before you’ve actually gone through the experience. Welcome to “The First Five Years” where Mitch Goldstein, a professor of design at Rochester Institute of Technology, answers reader questions related to the unchartered waters of beginning a career. This month, Mitch answers a question about putting together a winning portfolio.

What should be in my portfolio?

A portfolio is not just a representation of skills and abilities, or simply a checklist of things you know how to make. A good portfolio also represents your opinion on design, what you think is and is not important. It is the story about the relationship between you and design. Companies and clients do not hire a portfolio; they hire a person, therefore it is important that you are represented in your portfolio.

The portfolio of Mitch and his creative partner and wife Anne Jordan showcases these book cover designs because that is the work they want to do.

Employers will see a ton of to-do list apps and craft beer labels in portfolios that come across their desks — what makes yours unique? Portfolios should have a few things: first, I want to see that you are capable of creating refined, clear, down-to-the-last-detail work in your portfolio.

I want to see excellent work, which is why you should never add sub-par work just to fill up space — I would much rather see five excellent projects than five excellent projects mixed with five mediocre projects. It is very important that you are able to clearly explain the hows and whys of each project. The portfolio itself might be what gets you in the door, but the conversation about what you did and why you did it gets you the job. Make sure that you are able to justify your decisions and explain your choices.

The first set of work helps me understand that you can do the job. Secondly, I want to see you in your work. This is why another key part of a good portfolio is work that is more personal, experimental, and possibly less refined or polished. If you have work that you are obsessed about, work that keeps you up at night, I want to see it. Do not let labels get in your way — it does not have to be “design” to be included, it just has to be something you care deeply about. What work have you done outside of your design classes? Painting, sculpture, photography…all of it counts if it is important to you and your relationship to creative practice. 

The theme of Julie Campbell’s portfolio is bright, visually assertive work that feature motion and often references popular culture.

Finally, you should include the kind of work that you want to do more of, and you should leave out the work you want to do less of. You will get back what you put out — if you do not want to design websites, don’t put websites into your portfolio. If you want to design more book covers, make sure plenty of book covers are included. Having a clear vision of what you want to do as a designer is important, and your portfolio should reflect that in its content. It is always obvious to someone looking at your work which stuff you care about, and which stuff you don’t care about. Part of having an opinion about design is including work that matters to you, instead of including work just because you think that is what you are supposed to do. Always remember: it is not just a portfolio, it is your portfolio.

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Perfecting Your Sales Pitch to Get Your Ideas the Green Light

Artists and designers, for the most part, strive to create beautiful products and solve an array of visual, aural, and tactile challenges. They don’t often pursue their careers with the hope of becoming professional number crunchers. And yet, as more designers strive to build businesses and brands of their own, many find they need to be fluent in more than Photoshop to spark the interest of the investment community.

Veteran investor Tige Savage, who co-founded venture capital firm Revolution and co-leads the firm’s early state investment fund, Revolution Ventures, knows a thing or two about what it takes to successfully grow a business. And he’s willing to look anywhere for a good idea. One of his most recent investments is the design-focused start-up Framebridge, a direct-to-consumer custom framing company that just announced a $30 million Series C funding led by T. Rowe Price.

In the interview below, Savage offers keen insight to creatives on how they can perfect their sales pitch.

When somebody is coming to you with an investment proposal, what do you look for?

The key things that you really want to articulate to your investors are your background, your team, and the elements of the team. There is a tendency to get into great detail. Take it to the high level. Say, this is what our thing does, this is how we monetize it, and here is what the competition look like. An investor will ask who your competitors are. Many people will say “our product is so new and different we have no competitors.” This is not right. VCs want to understand your awareness of the competitive environment. They want to know why you think you have strengths that carve out a reasonable niche versus the rest. 

Then you need to explain how you expect to deploy capital. How, ultimately, you expect for the investors to get their money back? Know your numbers; investors will want to see objective evidence of success. Ask yourself: What’s my customer acquisition cost? How is that trending over time? How did those customers acquired at different points in time behave vis-a-vis each other?

“An investor will ask who your competitors are. Many people will say “our product is so new and different we have no competitors.” This is not right.”

What are some of the most common mistakes you see?

One of the greatest mistakes first-time founders make is thinking they need to know the answers to everything, and that VCs are just out to fire them if they don’t. Neither of those things is true.

Nobody expects you to know the answer to everything. What they are expecting is that you hire the best people. Often, founders feel that hiring super qualified people somehow undermines them. They think, “maybe this person knows more than I do and the VCs are going to want these guys to run the company and I’m gonna end up with some political fight.” The truth is, nobody ever gets fired because they have a great team. It’s the opposite.

“One of the greatest mistakes first-time founders make is thinking they need to know the answers to everything, and that VCs are just out to fire them if they don’t. Neither of those things is true.”

It’s also important for founders to remember that when companies mature, the needs of the senior team change. Often, you can hire a better person when you’re a bigger, more established, better capitalized, higher growth company. But what happens is that founders who have a very small team of two or three people early on feel too great a sense of allegiance to these people. They think: “Gosh, they got me from A to B. I need to give them a shot to get to C. If they fail, then they fail.”

In reality, once you get to B, you can hire a person with the necessary skills set and find a new role within the organization for the other. Put them underneath a highly qualified person to learn a new skills set, empower them, but don’t let there be room for ego. There’s no room for the attitude “I was the chief product officer at a three-person company and now we’re a 100-person company and I’m not giving up that title.”

One of Tige Savage’s more recent investments, framing start-up Framebridge, just received a $30 million Series C funding led by T. Rowe Price. Image courtesy of Revolution Ventures.

How do you go about figuring out how much money to raise?

Raise enough capital to achieve an important business milestone that is an inflection point in the business. Plus, enough capital for a little variability around achieving on the timeframe that you think. Plus, enough runway to raise your next round of capital.

Hypothetically, if you’re an entrepreneur you might think: “Hey, what I need is 10 customers, each of whom is at least $100,000 in sales, and I need to populate my database with these people and I need to find a business development deal with this important partner.” Now you have to think, what’s the sequencing for me to be able to achieve these things?

So, I’m going to get my first customer, then second, then eventually five. That’s going to be enough leverage for me to start my negotiations for this important business partnership. I’m going to hire somebody to populate that database and, by the time they bring us up to our tenth customer, I should have that business partnership done and that’s going to allow me to hire this many people. And I’m going to have to make some investments in order to do it. It’s going to take me 15 months.

Again, all hypothetical. You add it up and say “Oh, that 15 months is going to cost me $450,000, or $30,000 a month.” How certain am I that I’m going to get that? Let’s say I’m pretty certain; I have a list of 20 customers and we already have a conversation going. I’ll give myself 18 months to give just a little room.

“Raise enough capital to achieve an important business milestone that is an inflection point in the business. Plus, enough capital for a little variability around achieving on the timeframe that you think. Plus, enough runway to raise your next round of capital.”

It typically takes six months to raise capital. You say 15 months, I’m gonna make it 18 to give myself a little bit of room, plus another six is 24 months total. If I estimate $30,000 a month, that’s $360,000 a year, or $720,000 for two years, so I want to raise $720,000. What that all does is it gives me certainty that I hit these inflection points.

It can feel like creatives and VCs speak two different languages—right brain, left brain. Do you have any recommendations on how creators can best communicate ideas to investors?

VCs aren’t looking for a business plan; they’re looking for a pitch that’s crisp, tells the story well, is well presented and is substantiated by data. Stress test your pitch with everybody you know. Put it in front of as many people as you can. Ask them to ask hard questions. Come up with answers to the hard questions. Practice and be ready.

Two, consider a co-founder. If there’s a real vacancy in the skillset—if you just have the right side of the brain and you need both—go find the left side of the brain to fill that in. Incubators and accelerators are good places to go looking for a co-founder. They’re also good ways to be put through the paces to refine an idea into more concrete set of business opportunities.

What was your fastest ‘yes’ to an entrepreneur that pitched you?

The company is called Framebridge—they do custom framing of either physical or digital goods at great price points and with incredibly good customer service. It’s a very design-oriented business. The founder is Susan Tynan, who I’ve known from a few prior lives. She had worked with us, then left to go to the White House, then ran business development at LivingSocial. We met for breakfast to talk about other opportunities and part of the way through she said, “I have this idea. It’s this custom framing business.”

As I listened to her, I realized it’s exactly the kind of thing I like. Custom framing is a big category, $5 billion in the United States a year. There’s only one scale player, which is Michaels, the crafts store, and prices are extremely high. The customer experience is downright terrible. You have to go in, you make all these choices, you wait three weeks, you have to go back and pick the thing up, you find out it costs $400 and you’re like “Gosh.”

So Susan was describing this terrible experience and I could see how technology could make it better. And it was coming from a person whom I knew, who had learned the demand for this kind of thing exists from her experience with LivingSocial. I like disruptive consumer-oriented products, so it was right in my sweet spot, I told her, “I think it’s a great idea and I want to invest.”

You told her you’d invest before she even asked for an investment?

Yeah. I thought it was a great idea. I told her she ought to do it. I wanted her to go back and do a little bit of homework but I said, “I love it. We’ll find a way to make it happen.”

Interview edited for length and clarity.

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