Graham Weaver
Partnering with a Stanford professor and private equity founder to share his perspective with the world.
THE CLIENT
Graham Weaver founded Alpine Investors, a San Francisco-based private equity firm, he teaches a popular course at Stanford’s GSB, and uses writing (and now video) as a way to share his life learnings to inspire others.
THE CHALLENGE
When I kicked off work with Graham, he had a bunch of Microsoft Word docs full of stories and an ambition to share his perspective with others. He wanted to create a voice and platform distinct from his work with Alpine Investors or Stanford GSB, and to build a following among others in his industry as well as aspiring founders, CEOs, and other leaders. He had considered using Medium to publish his writing, but desired a more permanent and dynamic place to share insights.
OUR WORK
Core services: Strategy & idea generation, copywriting (for web), editing existing blog posts, ghost writing blog content, writing social media captions.
We kicked things off with a series of strategy sessions during which we identified a core audience and built an editorial plan (including a mission, vision, and pillars) for his blog. Then we got to work. Collaborating with a web designer we mapped out the essential pages and structure of Grahamweaver.com 1.0, then chose colors and an aesthetic that would signal Graham’s connection to Alpine while maintaining a separate tone and feel.
Next it was time to edit all of those existing stories and to plot out a calendar of posts for our first few months. Using our strategy as a guide we mapped out several months of blog posts that varied across themes and would appeal to our target audience. We co-wrote an introductory post and pressed publish.
Fast forward 2+ years and today we strategize on post ideas, provide both structural and copyedits for blog posts, and track performance.
THE IMPACT
The blog has grown from an idea to an (email subscribed) audience of over 12,000 readers. With 44 blog posts under our belts and lots of learnings, Graham continues to share reflections on founding Alpine, leadership in general, self improvement, and other nuggets of wisdom inspired by his life experiences. We’ve received valuable feedback from bankers, founders, CEOs, business students, and Alpine’s own employees.
“I have worked with Becca for over a year on my blog. She has helped me with brainstorming content creation, outlining my main points, and editing. Becca’s writing is impeccable. She helps me use concise language and communicate my points clearly. I frequently have blog readers comment about the quality of the writing. Additionally, Rebecca is a joy to work with. She is funny, humble, and inspirational!”
