Living the start-up life: 2nd edition

Time doesn’t just fly — it pushes forward like a rocket when you love what you do. The Moonsail North team officially launched at the very end of 2014, just before the holidays. Our mission? Marshal storytelling and strategy to help innovators communicate and grow.

YouTube video

It has felt like there’s been a wrinkle in time since. How are we solidly in our second year as a communications and capacity-building start-up? As the co-founder of Moonsail North, I can’t help but reflect on some of the milestones.

Square One (and Two)

We have a bit too much fun coming up with concepts and designs for our brochures — the way we tell our own story by way of a print collateral piece. In our first year, our brochure looked like this, and each included an insert of book darts:

Moonsail North brochure 2015jpg

 

In our second year, our brochure looks like this, and each includes a coloring insert with a little branding exercise on the back:

Moonsail North brochure 2016

Client successes

If this were the Oscars, we would be rushed off the stage after spending far too long thanking all our clients, collaborators and cheerleaders. Luckily, this isn’t the Academy Awards, and we can spend a minute to give props to our incredible clients, each of whom makes the world a better place in a unique way

By way of just a few examples, take a quick peek at:

Our clients also help people connect to their truest selves through the arts, such as photography, and through healing in a health care environment. Our clients empower communities and educate the next generation of leaders.

We have a couple of big client launches soon, by the way, and can’t wait to share those with you in this blog space and over our social media channels.

What’s the latest?

We love sharing resources about storytelling and strategy, including this sampling:

And we’ve enjoyed seeing others share our content, such as this share by the Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce about our Google AdWords tip sheet.

What’s in a name?

Being as passionate as we are about what we do, we have admittedly also enjoyed chatting about our organization and our team:

Dream team (work smart, play hard, do something you believe in)

I can’t say enough about our team. While Moonsail North started out as a start-up project I cooked up with my co-founder, Scott, we quickly expanded to include Sedora, our director of strategy, along with our experienced specialists who work wonders in everything from graphic design to website development, and some incredible student talent. (See a taste of Katie’s work here, regrammed by Holstee, and Bri’s projects here, with Team Detroit, where she is now. We have a new student joining the team soon, and cannot wait to announce that!) Everyone works smart, plays hard, and believes in contributing in ways big and small to improving the world around us. We love sharing our perspectives and learning more from the rest of the team. And we laugh. A lot.

Team dream (charities and traditions)

It’s not surprising that with such a committed and caring team, we soon had ourselves an office birthday tradition. In honor of their special day of the year, staffers select a charity of their choice to receive a donation from Moonsail North. Beyond that, Moonsail North also supports charities in different ways, such as sponsoring the Greater Lansing Food Bank’s annual Empty Plate.

So, what’s next? True to start-up life with a Slack-loving, distributed team in Michigan and California, we are always looking out for the perfect space. We have been in the process of relocating our Michigan HQ, and we can’t wait to share that news.

Thanks for joining us for the journey until now. If you’re just arriving, join us for the journey forward?