Building a Content Business From the Ground Up

Scarlet Letters Copywriting | Co-founded 2004

The Challenge

The problem wasn’t just too much content. It was a system problem.

Scarlet Letters began with a simple premise: words matter. Founded in 2004, the company grew into a two-person copywriting and editing practice serving entertainment, healthcare, travel, software, consumer products, beauty, and high-tech clients. The challenge was not simply producing good copy. It was understanding different audiences, industries, brands, and business objectives—and consistently turning those requirements into clear, engaging content.

My Role

Co-Founder · Writer · Editor · Content Strategist. I worked across the content lifecycle: client relationships and strategy, research, writing, editing, production, delivery, project management, and the day-to-day work of operating and growing a small creative business.

The Shift

Then

Page-level execution

Individual pages, assets, migrations, and requests solved one at a time.

Now

System-level influence

Strategy, architecture, governance, operating practices, and organizational capability that make better decisions repeatable.

The Transformation

From content sprawl to a more scalable content system.

One editorial discipline. Many worlds. The Scarlet Letters practice moved fluidly between entertainment, healthcare, travel, software, consumer products, beauty, and high technology—adapting to different audiences, brands, and business objectives while holding to one editorial standard.

What I Changed

Editorial strategy: understanding the audience, objective, message, and voice. Writing and storytelling: turning complex or unfamiliar subjects into engaging content. Editing: shaping structure, clarity, tone, accuracy, and voice. Client leadership: working directly with clients to understand needs, solve problems, and deliver against expectations. Project management: balancing assignments, deadlines, stakeholders, and formats. Business building: helping operate and grow a small creative business from the ground up.

Influencing Without Authority

Different audiences. Different industries. Different voices. One editorial standard. The work required close client partnership, active listening, clear decisions, and the ability to move between creative problem-solving and reliable delivery.

Building Capability

Running a small editorial business taught me to think about content from every angle: Is this the right story? Is it right for the audience? Does it solve the client’s problem? Does it sound like the brand? Can we deliver it well? Can we make the process better next time?

Impact

A durable two-person editorial practice serving a broad cross-industry client base since 2004. The work built a foundation in writing, editing, storytelling, client leadership, creative problem-solving, and the discipline required to make complicated subjects clear.

What I Learned

Content leadership starts long before the content gets published. Great content requires more than good words: strategy, audience understanding, editorial judgment, curiosity, collaboration, and the discipline to make complicated things clear.

The Bigger Picture

Scarlet Letters taught me how to make the work. Enterprise healthcare taught me how to build the system around the work. Together, those experiences shape how I lead today: strategic enough to see the system, editorial enough to care about the sentence.