Lessons from Lulu Cheng Meservey

On Going Direct and Founder-Led Communication

On the 'Go Direct' Manifesto: "The old communications playbook is dead: Political and company narratives used to be controlled by publicists and journalists. But now, founders can Go Direct." [1] This principle encourages founders to communicate directly with their audience, bypassing traditional media gatekeepers. [1]
The Essence of Going Direct: "The crux of what it means is for the founder and the originator of the project to speak directly to the audience without middlemen, without screens, without filtering it through all this kind of PR corpo talk and actually revealing their true personality and their true motivations." [1]
Why Founder-Led Communication Works: When a founder communicates directly, it builds trust and conveys conviction in a way that a polished corporate statement cannot. [2] People want to see the passion and belief behind a company. [2]
Don't Be a Coward: As a founder, you will face criticism and haters. "You're going to potentially be embarrassed, you're going to get haters, you're going to get dunked on that's part of this journey of you fighting for the company because if you're not going to lend your own credibility for the company, who else should do that." [3]
The Risk of Not Going Direct: "If you are absent and you are not ever speaking directly to the audience, then in this environment people don't know whether to trust you, they don't know what you stand for, why would they be excited to go work for you and everything about your company is just flatter." [1]
Going Direct is Not Just Tweeting: It's about owning your relationships, whether with customers, employees, or regulators. It means hosting events, being on a texting basis with key people, and not just handing things off to lobbyists. [1]
The Founder as the Human Mascot: The founder's story is crucial because they are the human embodiment of the company's mission and values. [4]

On Strategy and Messaging

The Foundation of Excellent Communications: Meservey outlines four key pillars: Strategy, Tactics, Message, and Delivery. [5]
Strategy Serves Purpose: For a company, the purpose of communications is to create value and help the business succeed. "Anything that doesn't help the business succeed is wasted motion." [5]
The Military Framework for Strategy: She advocates for using the "ends, ways, and means" framework to bring clarity to communication goals. [5]
The Entire Job of a Comms Strategy: "The entire job of a comms strategy is to make those people believe those things that are going to make them make those decisions." [1]
The Power of a Clear Mission: A company's mission should be ambitious and aspirational, aiming for the moon to land among the stars. It should be a guiding principle that doesn't become outdated. [2][3]
Crafting Your Message: The message is the highest leverage element of a communications strategy. It's more important than the format or channel. [1]
Don't Strive for "Perfect" Writing: "It's better for it to be bad and honest." Raw, authentic communication with genuine emotion is more impactful than perfectly crafted but soulless text. [1]
The Concentric Circles Framework: To spread a message, start with yourself to gain clarity, then move to your co-founders, employees, investors, and power users, expanding outward in sequence. [6]
Find Your Audience's "Cultural Erogenous Zones": "People have things that they either care about or don't and you're not going to change that. So it's a huge lift to try to change someone's worldview or their passions. It's a light lift to take the thing you want to talk about and just shape it into to fit into their worldview or their passions." [7]
Build an API to Your Audience: It's your job to create a bridge from what your audience already cares about to the message you want to convey. [7]
The Power of Analogy: To make a message memorable and repeatable, use analogies. Meservey's example is "put the pill in some cheese." [7]
Stories Over Adjectives: Use anecdotes and stories instead of subjective and often meaningless adjectives to make your message stick. [7]
The ABBA Structure for Slogans: She references a structure for creating memorable slogans, though the specifics are not detailed in the provided search results. [8]

On Risk-Taking and Being an Insurgent

Your Enemy is the Status Quo: For a startup, avoiding risks means letting the status quo win by default. [7]
Mistakes of Commission Over Omission: It's better to make a mistake by taking action because you can learn from it quickly. Mistakes of omission mean you're not learning or even noticing missed opportunities. [7]
The Insurgency Framework: Startups should act like insurgents, not incumbents. They are often threatening to established players and beliefs. [4]
Don't Be Boring: "You have to say things to stand out." Boring, flaccid platitudes won't get you noticed. [9]
There Is No Peacetime: If you are succeeding, someone is always coming for you. You must always be prepared to defend your position. [9]
Act Like an Insurgent, Not an Incumbent: This is one of her ten rules for effective comms strategy, emphasizing a proactive and disruptive mindset. [9]

On Public Relations and the Media

The Old Comms Playbook is Outdated: "Most media pitches don't work, and the mere whiff of 'thought leadership' triggers a gag reflex." [10]
You're Not Owed Anyone's Attention: In communications, there are no guaranteed outcomes. You can't force people to like you or the press to cover you favorably. [5]
The Role of Traditional Press: While "Go Direct" is paramount, traditional media still has a role. It can be a tool to reach specific audiences if used strategically. [2]
Don't Rely on a PR Agency to Save You: She questions the default of hiring a PR agency and encourages founders to own their communications. [11]
The Person Attacking You is Not Your Audience: When facing criticism, it's important to remember who you are actually trying to reach. [4]

On Building a Brand and a Following

A Company Can Function Like It Has a Soul: While not a literal soul, a company can have an ineffable quality in its culture that guides its actions. [8]
Your First Product is the Story About Your Product: Before people will be receptive to your actual product, you have to find product-market fit for your narrative. [4]
Every Company Needs 12 Disciples: Drawing a parallel to Christianity, she emphasizes the need for a core group of believers who will spread your message. [8]
The Power of a Foil: "Super extra bonus points are if you can get the people who are mad at you to strice and affect you and then use them as a foil to go and gather a bunch of the people who would be supporting you." [12]
Pick a Tribe: You have to choose a tribe to align with, but it doesn't have to be a divisive political one. You can define your own tribe. [12]
How to Go Viral: She analyzes the "Barbie" movie's marketing as a case study in creating a billion-dollar meme machine through imagination and hype. [13]

On Personal and Leadership Development

Read It Out Loud: To avoid corporate speak, read your writing out loud. "You can feel the cringe like surge through your body if something if it's something that you would never say." [8]
Defending Others is Easier Than Defending Yourself: It's a basic truth that having someone else defend you is more effective and allows for a more robust defense. [8]
Tit for Two Tats: In repeated games, the optimal strategy is not "tit for tat," but to be more forgiving initially. This concept from game theory can be applied to public relations. [8]
Don't Let Things Happen to You. Go and Happen to Things: A call to be proactive and take control of your own narrative and destiny. [4]
Communication is a Vector, Not a Scalar: "It only matters if there is a direction attached to it." Communication must have a purpose and a goal. [14]
Be in an Archetype, but Not Between Archetypes: You can be a brash, funny, or silent founder type, but trying to be a mix of archetypes comes across as inauthentic. [15]
The Illusion of Transparency: Don't assume that others understand your intentions and motivations. You need to communicate them clearly. [8]
Write for Your 5-Year-Old: To ensure clarity, try to explain your ideas in a way a child could understand. This forces you to eliminate jargon and complexity. [8]

On the Future and Technology

The Next Era is Shorthand: After "going direct," the next phase of communication will be about conveying complex ideas in concise and powerful ways. [15]
AI and Societal Adoption: "One of the big problems with AI is actually not on the technical side. One of the big problems is societal adoption and societal acceptance." [2]
Benevolent Propaganda for AI: For technologies like AI, public perception and clear communication are critically important, perhaps more so than for any other technology besides nuclear. [2][3]
A Comms Strategy is as Important as a Product Strategy: For founders, especially in complex fields like AI, having a strategy to win over the public and regulators is as crucial as having a plan for the product itself. [2][3]
On Free Expression: "At Substack, we don't make moderation decisions based on public pressure or PR considerations. An important principle for us is defending free expression, even for stuff we personally dislike or disagree with." [16]

These quotes and learnings offer a glimpse into the strategic mind of Lulu Cheng Meservey and provide a modern playbook for effective communication in a noisy and chaotic world. Her emphasis on authenticity, direct engagement, and strategic narrative-building has resonated with a new generation of founders and leaders.

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