Letters from Orlé
This is where I put down what I notice. Specific brand patterns. Founders I keep thinking about after a call. Things I think the people I work with — and the people I haven't met yet — need to hear out loud.
The most recent letter
Dear founder,
I had a call this week with a founder eight years in. Beautiful work, devoted clients, full calendar — and a brand so polite you could miss her in a quiet room. I keep meeting her. Different industries, different ages, same shape. Not absence. Interference. I needed to put it down somewhere. Here's what I told her, and what I'd tell you…
Continue reading the letter →
Earlier letters
In order of arrival, most recent first.
Apr 2026
On positioning
A short note on the most common pattern I find on diagnostic calls — and why "professional" is the word doing the most damage.
Mar 2026
On language
Hedging is not humility — it's interference. Five hedges I find on every audit, why they sound safe, and what to put in their place.
Feb 2026
On signal
A reading on pre-conscious signal — the things your brand says in the first half-second, before any copy has a chance to do its job.
Jan 2026
On the offer
Most offers are leaking — not from what they say, but from what they don't. A three-column read on architecture, scarcity, and intentional withholding.
Dec 2025
On the rebrand
A new logo cannot fix an old pattern. A short autopsy of the cosmetic rebrand, and the diagnostic question that has to be answered first.
Nov 2025
On the over-explainer
If your first sales call is a 45-minute rescue mission, the brand isn't doing its job. How to read the symptoms — and the pattern they belong to.
More entries live in the archive. New ones arrive when something asks to be written down.
When you are ready
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