First principle - Every story needs a protagonist, a hero. Make sure you find yours quickly. In the early days of StayUncle when we had no advertising budget, storytelling was our only way out. Sanchit, my Co-founder, or more precisely his Tinder dating life were the center of StayUncle story telling efforts which brought forth our first set of paying customers.

Second principle – Consistency. One day my co-founder, Sanchit's mother got to know about the contents of our newsletter featuring his Tinder dating stories. His mother got a mild heart attack from the shock. Sanchit bounced on me for secretly taking note of our bro talks and sending them to our community without his knowledge. He insisted to stop the newsletter. Despite the difficult circumstances and the stakes in place (an actual human life) I didn’t stop the story flow. A good real life story often becomes even greater than the trivialities of its main protagonist as they involve faith.

Third principle – Never outsource content requirements. That’s because very often the story of the startup is the story, the personal tragedy of the founder himself and his motivation to address a certain problem.

Fourth principle - Keep it on digital. It’s cheaper, until you are bootstrapped.

Lastly, for ROI observe the amount of organic traffic received, followed by the number of brand mentions.