Founders Ink

Professional content production services for experts and entrepreneurs.

Founder

UNIGNORABLE

Community Advisor

Demand Curve

Demand Curve (YC S19) creates courses, content, and events to teach founders and marketers how to grow companies. Our weekly newsletter goes out to over 100k founders and marketers.

A few highlights:

Helped create a best-selling marketing course and email sequence that generated 5 figures in revenue, plus ongoing sales.

Wrote dozens of high-quality long-form content assets, including course curriculum, blog articles, deep-dive playbooks, newsletter issues, and much more.

Senior Content Lead

Advocate SEO

Advocate SEO helps law firms attract new clients with search-focused content marketing.

Partner, Head of Content

HumanN

Grew the blog from 20,000 to 65,000 monthly visitors. Restructured the blog and built a content team, designed a quiz funnel generating $25,000 in monthly revenue, lead the SMS and email marketing channels for prospecting and acquisition, developed and designed several long-form sales letters (acquisition), and wrote copy for at least one product page (ok, just one).

Senior Content Strategist

Natural Stacks Inc

Grew the blog from 25,000 to 125,000 monthly visitors. Wrote content for the blog, product pages, landing pages, and the website. 

Email marketing team of one: I handled the copy, creative, planning, and execution of the email marketing channel.

Digital Marketer

Examine.com

Writer & Researcher

Self-Employed

I ghostwrote for a NYT Bestselling author and serial entrepreneur.

Ghostwriter

What do Jesus, Socrates, and Marco Polo have in common? 

They all used ghostwriters to capture their knowledge. 

My name's Dennis, and I run Founders Ink — my specialized ghostwriting agency.

We help experts and entrepreneurs create professional thought leadership. 

How do we do it?

By ghostwriting value-led social media posts, articles, and newsletters that help generate inbound.

I say "ghostwriting" because everyone understands what that means.

But to be honest, the work we do is closer to that of a scribe.

Here's the difference:

Scribe: 100% your ideas, in your words, in your voice.

Ghostwriter: 30% your ideas, fill in the rest with conventional wisdom.

We help our clients unlock the wisdom and expertise that's stuck in their head.

Then we scale that knowledge across digital media to attract those who will benefit from it most. 

Your target audience.

Send me a DM to learn more about our process. 

Or grab time on my calendar if you're interested in working together: 

https://savvycal.com/dennisbuckley/f736de7c

I get pitched 5 -10 times a week from freelance writers.

Here are the 3 biggest mistakes I see them make:

(That tank outreach effectiveness)

1. They don’t tell you how they can help you

I got this DM on Monday:

“I’m a seasoned marketing professional with a full content marketing lifecycle experience.” 

“With my decade long dynamic experience, I can help your business convert like a pro. I've worn many hats including Copywriting, digital marketing, social media, SEO, Email Marketing, Ads, ecommerce, and Executive Assistance to CEOs.”

Who farted, right? 

Here's some tough love:

It’s not the prospect’s job to figure out what they need. 

It’s *yours* 

Too many writers position themselves as content generalists. 

“I can do it all”, they say.

Maybe. Maybe not. 

Regardless, most writers approach prospects with a la carte mentality instead of chef’s choice. 

If you were my writing student, I'd tell you presenting as a jack of all trades says you’re okay at a few things, but you aren’t exceptional at anything. 

You're asking the prospect make too many decisions, I'd say.

Then I'd tell you to pick 1-2 things you're best at and present them as the ideal solution to the prospect’s problem (you should know this).

It’s a matter of empathy:

- Put yourself in their shoes
- Study their funnel/business
- Connect the dots
- Present solution

2. They don’t curate their portfolio

Less is more here. 

A Google Doc with 50 miscellaneous URLs is neither helpful nor impressive.

It’s a chore.

Don't make me jump through hoops to figure out what you do and what you're good at.

You tailor your resume for different employers, right? 

So, tailor your portfolio for each prospect. 

Include some relevant examples. Ones that show you have experience in their industry, channel, and or platform. Go for a hat trick for best results.

But writing samples alone aren't enough...

3. They don’t frame writing samples around results

Here’s the thing about portfolios: 

I don't read them.

Usually the outreach message tells me everything I need to know. 

On rare occasions when I do peek-a-port(folio), it's usually:

- Content-rich
- But CONTEXT-poor

It's all examples and no commentary.

- How many sales did that BOFU article get?
- How much traffic did your SEO blogs generate?
- How many email signups did your post capture?
- How much engagement did your LinkedIn posts get?
- How happy was the client with the quality of your work?

This is what busy business people want to see.

The fact is:

Nobody cares about your writing until you give them a reason to:

- Explain how you help (specifically)
- Point to a few relevant examples (< 10)
- Emphasize why they're valuable (show, don't tell)

If your pitch is clear and relevant, they might read your stuff. 

And if they like what they read, well... you know what happens next.

Dennis Buckley

LinkedIn ghostwriting for published founders and CEOs | Founder, Founders Ink | Ghostwrote for a NYT best-seller | ex Demand Curve (YC S19)

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