Mar 23, 2023 · 1h 3m · lennys-podcast
Navigating comms and PR | Lulu Cheng Meservey (Substack, Activision Blizzard)
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In this masterclass on modern PR, communications strategist Lulu Cheng Meservey shares actionable frameworks for startups to craft viral ideas, tap into audience psychology, and build high-leverage direct communication channels.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Lenny holds 23.9% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Lenny as informed peer 3.6 Guest teaching 6.1 Guest disagreement 1.2 Lenny pushing back 0.0
speaking balance: gold is Lenny, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 48:10 Lulu takes aim at low-quality LinkedIn corporate pablum
Lulu bluntly asserts that 95% of LinkedIn content is useless congratulatory corporate noise, contrasting it sharply with authentic writing.
Hardest push from Lenny ▶ 39:46 Lenny challenges the narrow targeting premiseLenny pushes back on niche targeting by voicing founder concerns that starting too narrow might permanently cap total market size.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 16:24 Cultural erogenous zones via Kamala Harris security exampleLulu masterfully demonstrates how unsexy policy topics like K-12 reading standards must be bridged directly to defense readiness passions to spread effectively.
Lenny holds their own ▶ 48:02 Lenny brings proprietary newsletter data comparing LinkedIn to TwitterLenny brings concrete distribution data from his own newsletter showing LinkedIn outperforming Twitter, validating alternative platform strategy.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Lenny as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Lenny pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Foundational Principles: How Ideas Spread | 3 | 6 | 1 | 0 | Lenny opens by asking what makes ideas spread. Lulu delivers a masterclass on memorability, analogies, and reducing cognitive burden so a second-grader can understand. | |
| Case Study: Substack Free Expression Tweet and Inside Jokes | 3 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Lenny asks for viral tweet examples, and Lulu shares a self-reflective failure where an esoteric New Yorker quote fell flat during a Substack free-expression thread. | |
| Comms Philosophy: Embracing Mistakes of Commission and Taking Risks | 3 | 6 | 2 | 0 | Lulu explains why startups must embrace mistakes of commission over omission, using an investment vs. sitting in cash analogy to illustrate fighting the status quo. | |
| Framework: Identifying Cultural Erogenous Zones | 3 | 7 | 1 | 0 | Lulu breaks down her cultural erogenous zones framework, explaining that comms must bridge an existing passion to the product rather than attempting to change worldviews. | |
| Underdog Strategy: The Concentric Circles Framework | 3 | 7 | 2 | 0 | Lulu explains the underdog concentric circles framework, detailing why startups cannot use legacy corporate PR playbooks and must build distribution from their desk outward. | |
| Implementing Concentric Circles: Substack Power Users and Internal Alignment | 5 | 6 | 1 | 0 | Lenny shares his lived experience as an early Substack power writer, and Lulu explains how employee and early user alignment creates credibility while misalignment causes severe damage. | |
| Tactical Template: One-Page Comms Strategy Document | 4 | 6 | 1 | 0 | Lulu outlines a practical one-page strategy template where founders rank top target circles and map out where they reside intellectually. | |
| Framework: The Mathematical Formula for Goal-Driven Comms | 3 | 6 | 1 | 0 | Lulu details her formula linking business goals to required actions, beliefs, distribution channels, and calls to action instead of tracking vanity comms impressions. | |
| Physics of Comms: Maximizing Impact via Pressure Equals Force Divided by Area | 3 | 7 | 1 | 0 | Lulu adapts the physics equation Pressure = Force / Area to comms, explaining that early startups must reduce surface area to maximize force on core diehards. | |
| Sponsor Break: Vanta Compliance Automation | 4 | 6 | 1 | 0 | Following an ad read, Lenny and Lulu discuss the Balaji Network State launch and address founder fears about niche positioning in huge internet markets. | |
| The Power of Human Connection: Avoiding Corporate Speak | 4 | 7 | 1 | 0 | Lulu highlights the flaw of speaking like a faceless corporation, referencing Ryan Petersen at Flexport as a model for authentic human-led comms. | |
| Platform Dynamics: Evaluating Twitter vs. Underutilized LinkedIn | 5 | 6 | 2 | 0 | Lenny points out driving higher conversion from LinkedIn than Twitter. Lulu passionately agrees, pointing out that 95% of LinkedIn content is low-value corporate pablum, creating an open playing field. | |
| Going Direct Models: Pirate Wires and Influencer Strategy in Cosmetics | 3 | 7 | 1 | 0 | Lulu reveals how cosmetics brands like NYX bypass traditional media and ad spend entirely by channeling resources into human influencer distribution. | |
| Going Direct Playbook: Offense, Defense, and Launch Cadence | 4 | 6 | 1 | 0 | Lulu lays out the tactical steps for going direct, outlining audience priming for defensive protection, pre-launch content pipelines, and sustained cadence. | |
| Sustainable Growth: The Trap of Vanity Virality | 5 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Lenny and Lulu discuss the trap of vanity virality, noting that viral gimmick tweets attract the wrong audience rather than building durable peer respect. | |
| Lightning Round: Recommendations, Favorite Tools, and Final Comms Tip | 3 | 4 | 1 | 0 | In the lightning round, Lulu recommends Gates of Fire, admits her unglamorous love of Microsoft Excel, and gives her final tip to shower natural evangelists with free product. |
Statements from this episode (22)
Meservey: Audiences spread ideas to project identity, not help corporations
“The overall principle is you have to make it memorable and you have to make people want to say it of their own volition. And so what doesn't make them want to say it is doing a favor for a corporation. What does that make them want to say it is they want to br…”
Meservey: Replace subjective adjectives with repeatable anecdotes in corporate messaging
“Use an anecdote instead of using adjectives, because adjectives are so subjective. They're meaningless to people. So if you give them a story, that's something they can repeat over the dinner table.”
Meservey: Substack's controversial free-speech stance succeeded by aligning with core writers
“So that was a risk that I took and we took and they were supportive and it did work out because the people who were most likely to write on Substack generally appreciate that stance.”
Meservey: Effective comms bridges to existing audience passions rather than changing worldviews
“So it's a huge lift to try to change someone's worldview or their passions. It's a light lift to take the thing you want to talk about and just shape it into, to fit into their worldview or their passions.”
Meservey: Disruptive startups cannot rely on media and must build independent distribution
“You're fighting the status quo. And if that's the case, then you can't rely on maybe the government, maybe mainstream media to support what you're doing. And so you should assume that you want to go with an approach that doesn't require a lot of money or peopl…”
Meservey: Roll out announcements in concentric circles so outer audiences mimic insiders
“And the way, and the reason I say go out in concentric circles, as opposed to just hit each of these groups kind of haphazardly, Is that's your way to control the message because each circle is going to assume that the inner circle knows better than them, and …”
Meservey: Internal comms failures turn credible early employees into destructive external detractors
“If an early employee, for example, feels disgruntled, which is easy to do, and it's easy to do through a comms mistake. If you sell them on one thing and here's a vision, and now either that's changed or you miscommunicated it, they feel like there's a bait an…”
Meservey: Corporate PR responses only resonate when anchored in universal principles
“So obviously my and our ulterior motives is to vindicate the company and show people that this isn't true. But if we had just done that, nobody would have cared. Or maybe a few diehards would have cared. There are people who care deeply about Substack, but not…”
Meservey: I built my Twitter following specifically to reach Substack's target writers
“And before I worked at Substack, I had a sleepy account of a couple hundred followers that Didn't do very much. And I realized that the people that we were trying to speak to are heavy Twitter users, whether it's media people or online writers. And so I decide…”
Meservey: Balaji's book succeeded by bypassing traditional tours for owned distribution
“Balaji did this really well with his book, The Network State. That book was super successful. He didn't do a lot of the traditional book tour, New York Times stuff, you know, he went his own route.”
Meservey: Speaking as a faceless corporation alienates audiences who only trust people
“You're doing it as a corporation instead of a person. This is another super common mistake. It's like you're letting yourself speak like a faceless corporation because it feels like that's what you should do now. Like, okay, now you're a real company and now y…”
Meservey: Ryan Petersen's authentic personal brand successfully drove public interest in Flexport
“A good example of this would be Ryan Peterson at Plexport. His company, even after it got huge, He never became the generic corporate chief. He always was a person. And there are people, many, many people who became interested in Flexport because Ryan's an int…”
Meservey: Direct communication channels are mandatory for every company
“I think that for everybody, a hundred percent of the time you want going direct to be a part of what you're doing, whether it's all you're doing, whether you're doing something else, you can't not have a direct channel.”
Meservey: Audiences can always tell when executive communications are ghostwritten
“If somebody else is ghostwriting all their stuff, it shows.”
Rachitsky: LinkedIn now drives more traffic to my newsletter than Twitter
“What's interesting I found recently is I get more traffic to my newsletter from LinkedIn than Twitter.”
Meservey: LinkedIn offers huge distribution upside due to weak content competition
“Actually genuinely interesting and useful content on LinkedIn is very rare. So the ratio of your competitive set of interesting content versus how much time and attention people spend on there is excellent.”
Meservey: The makeup industry realized early consumers buy creator aesthetics, not brands
“The makeup industry is smarter than all of us in how they use social media and influencers because they caught on very early on. That people don't buy makeup to subscribe to makeup brands, that they do it because a certain celebrity or influencer or Kardashian…”
Meservey: NYX spends zero on traditional marketing, directing all budget to influencers
“NYX is one of the makeup companies that has, as far as I know, zero dollars spent on marketing and all of their dollars and all of their effort spent on paying influencers.”
Meservey: No external reporter tells an innovative founder's story better than them
“If you're doing something new and if you're mission driven, and if what you're doing is truly unique and innovative, No one else will be able to tell that as well as you. Media, the most friendly, sympathetic reporter on earth could not tell that as well as yo…”
Meservey: TikTok's algorithm favors new accounts that publish highly consistently at launch
“It actually helps the algorithm. If you come out the gate strong and are really regular. So TikTok, for example, if you're starting at TikTok with zero followers, you want to get a week or two of solid data just in the pipeline so you can hit it, because the a…”
Meservey: Chasing vanity virality inflates followers but creates an unengaged, mismatched audience
“Sometimes in the effort to just gain followers for the sake of it or go viral for the sake of it, you end up with a mismatch of the audience. You had this viral hamster tweet and now they're all here expecting hamster content and they're not engaging with you.…”
Meservey: Viral Twitter growth threads attract low-value likes but fail to earn respect
“They get a lot of likes that are kind of low value likes from random people about the internet. But I don't think that they're deepening a relationship with a meaningful audience. And I don't think that they're really capturing the respect and admiration of th…”