Welcome to today's episode of uploading and today we have the pleasure of chatting with Will Nelson, who is the founder and CEO of 64 stories. Will has been an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur in residence, an advisor to high growth companies, and he's been involved in the B two B space for a long time now. So we're really excited to have will on the show today to talk a lot about content, what it takes to build a personal brand, how entrepreneurs can stand out, and what the strategies are to build content that really sticks. So will, without any further ado, I'm going to let you kick us off. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your background and then we can jump into the convo.

Yeah, sounds good, and thanks for having me. So I've been an entrepreneur for ten plus years. I know I measured myself a little bit there, but I've been around the block a few times now. I've built a bunch of companies. A bunch have failed and a few have succeeded. I started off in ecommerce, actually building websites for people. Then I built my own, turned that into kind of like a Hellofresh style business up here in Canada out of Halifax. And that's the business that I sold a couple of years ago.

I've run marketing agencies. I was at tiny as an Eir for a little bit, built a content studio over there, and now I'm building a new agency called 64 Stories that helps B two B brands, founders, ceos and the leaders of those companies create content. So what I do is I interview those people for an hour, tease out all their insights and stories, help them craft that story, and then amplify their message on social using tools like Castmagic and others. So yeah, I'm a passionate entrepreneur. The reason that I'm starting 60 or four stories and I'm so obsessed with the creator space, whether it's on the youtuber side and more direct to consumer or the business side is that I've always been an entrepreneur that has struggled with distribution myself. I identify as a builder. I love building things. I've never been fantastic at getting attention for either my personal brand or for my businesses without having to pay for that attention through Facebook ads or more traditional media.

So that's my new obsession, is getting attention on the Internet. And so my investment for the next ten years will be around that topic.

Yeah, it's super interesting, will, because we're seeing more and more founders come out and just start tweeting more, being more active. Being active on LinkedIn previously that was seen as like this founder is distracted, they're making content, they're not focusing on their business, and slowly it's becoming more widely acceptable. I'm sure even funds would judge a founder on their diligence. If they were too active on social, that was kind of a red flag that they're not too active on the business, their product, their team and their, you know, you had a tweet from Jack Butcher that said, build this distribution, then build whatever you want. And clearly this is the reason why more and more founders are getting active. But I'm curious on your take, what has changed over time that has made founders realize the potential in building distribution through personal brand?

Yeah, that's a great question. I think that the rise of social slowly but surely changed that landscape. I remember starting at radiant six, which is a company acquired by Salesforce. I forget the year it might have been 2011, let's say. And social was just becoming a thing back then, and most companies were investing in more traditional forms of media at that time. And we're just starting to invest in social. Over time, that investment in social has developed. And I think slowly but surely founders have recognized the leverage that gets.