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USPs again?? Argh!, plus trailblazing women in tech & copy resource of the week
Kimberly Houston
February 16, 2025
Hey, hi, howdy, and welcome to Issue #36 of The Subhead, a bi-weekly newsletter about copywriting, marketing & media, and a look at some of the women who make it great.
In today’s edition:
✨ This week in freelancing
✨ USPs, again?? Why yes, yes indeed.
✨ Trailblazing Women in Tech: Startup Founder Nadia Odunayo
✨ Copy Resource of the Week: 51 Headline Formulas That Increase Conversions and Where to Use Them
✨ Just for Fun
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This week in freelancing
This week I wrote two articles for my healthcare client and finished up a 2k+ word article about push notification best practices for my software client.
Sadly, that work effort left me with very little in the tank to focus on other projects.
I’ve been writing for clients for a couple of decades, and I still haven’t found the ideal balance, or ratio, I guess you might say, between client work and my own creative projects.
I think it makes sense to prioritize the client work – after all, a gal’s gotta pay the bills – but I’d love to find a way to also carve out more time for my own work, and I know there’s a way.
It could be as simple as getting up earlier in the morning, but I’ve tried that 5 am thing, and let me tell ya, it does not work for me.
Send tips if ya got ‘em! 😊
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USPs again?? Yes, my friend.
If you’ve read this newsletter for any length of time, you may have noticed that I go on (and on) about USPs and differentiation … frequently.
That’s because it is so gosh darn important to set yourself apart online if you expect to get any traction for that thing you do.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of others out there doing the very same kind of work the rest of us do, and it’s imperative to position yourself so you don’t drown in that sea of sameness. But only if you want to attract ideal clients, users, buyers, and supporters.
Here’s an article from the fine folks at the email service provider, Aweber, that can help. It covers what a USP (unique selling proposition) is, characteristics of a strong USP, how to create your own, and six examples of effective USPs.
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Trailblazing Women in Tech: Startup Founder Nadia Odunayo
In a case of my troubling-attachment-to-scrolling-YouTube-way-too-many-times-per-week yielding something actually worth paying attention to, I found a video about entrepreneur Nadia Odunayo and her reading app, The StoryGraph.
And down the rabbit hole I went.
Nadia Odunayo is the founder and CEO of The StoryGraph, an all-in-one platform and app that helps you “track your reading and choose your next book based on your mood and your favorite topics and themes.” Launched in 2019, the platform is the #1 competitor to Goodreads with nearly 3M registered users.
Odunayo fully bootstrapped The StoryGraph using her personal savings, combining her passion for reading with her coding expertise to build a profitable company. She previously served as CTO at CodeNewbie, an international community of programmers and people learning to code, and as Co-founder/Director at Ignition Works, a software consulting company.
The mission statement Odunayo created in the very early days of The StoryGraph is the same one the company lives by today:
We exist to enhance the lives of avid readers everywhere and to inspire non-readers to discover the joy of reading.
As a lifelong avid reader myself, I co-sign this. 😊
You can learn more about Odunayo and The StoryGraph at the inline links above, and / or check out:
Meet Nadia: the one-woman dev team going up against one of the largest companies in the world [Article]
In this video, Odunayo shares how she built her app from the ground up and how she's working to change the face and future of women in tech.
In this video, Odunayo shares stories, strategies, and lessons learned from bootstrapping and building lean, how she came up with (and evaluated) her idea, coding as a one-woman dev team, her highest and lowest moments in building the company, and more.
In this talk given at The Rails SaaS Conference in Los Angeles, CA, Odunayo shares the details of her journey building and bootstrapping The StoryGraph, from early buzz on Twitter to bringing on a co-founder and going viral with the mobile apps she built with Ruby on Rails tooling.
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Copy Resource of the Week: 51 Headline Formulas That Work
This week’s resource is a very thorough, exhaustive article about creating headlines that convert.
The headline formulas are great, but the info about where and how to use them for more traffic, shares, and conversions? That is grade-A, stellar, top-notch advice.
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Just for Fun
Whad'ya say … how about some lighthearted silliness to take your mind off “things?” If you know what I mean, and I think you do.
Check out one minute, 43 seconds of pure levity, about designing a new font for Cheetos.
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That’s it for this week, my friend.
As always, thanks for reading, I appreciate you!
Be well. Stay curious. See you again in two weeks, on March 2.
Warmly,
Kimberly