We craft long-form content for long-term outcomes.
For the past few years, content has become a commodity, where creation is now delegated to the realm of AI chatbots. That's dangerous, because we are being taught that we no longer have to think or create new knowledge. All we need to do is to key in the right prompt.
We are here to change that.
We believe that content is wisdom, and we are on a mission to make wisdom clear and useful.
Why should we struggle with bad content produced by the reams, by chatbots that simply churn out things in readable sentences?
How this story begins
Hi,
I'm John Lim.
In 2016, I was depressed, suicidal and standing on the precipice of my apartment block, wondering if I should flip myself over. I was lost about what my future career would be.
But then I met Daniel Wong, who passed me his book 'The Happy Student', and that became my go-to book for the next few years. Doing his exercises helped me to see that I wanted to be remembered as someone who made a personal impact in people's lives.
That was the first time I personally experienced how content, could practically help people live better lives.
When I met him again in 2019 September, I was lost again. This time, despite having an overseas scholarship, I didn't have a job. I didn't know where to go next. I was binging desperately on food and had grown 8kg in 1 month.
Daniel Wong introduced me to this idea of writing articles, and that kickstarted my writing career.
But writing articles wasn't enough to make money. We needed a stronger belief. So we looked around for inspiration.
We saw how powerful content accelerated a brand's trust with people.
Maybe you think you're wasting money producing long-form content and beautifying them. Let's just show you some examples of how other brands have used them to great effect.
Powerful content builds fans, even without you paying a visit.
I fell in love with Lo and Behold, even before I had ever stepped into their stores. I didn't even know what they did. They just had a clear way of communicating what they stood for.
Sincere writing works, even without any snazzy graphics.
Just look at this Culture Playbook from Lo and Behold. They had little fancy graphics. Just clear, sincere, heartfelt words. It went straight to the heart, and helped readers to think, "Gosh! I really want to know the people behind this!"
Substance builds loyalty, even without any glorious skin.
Look inside, not outside. Often in a world led by impressions, and where life becomes a performance done for the likes of social media, it becomes hard to look beneath the surface.
But as humans, we have a knack for telling quality, and whether things are well made. That's why we sometimes get drawn to paying more for good quality, even when we are not too sure what we are paying for.
And it's why after you find a brand that communicates in a way that resonates with you, you keep going back again and again, even when they aren't the cheapest.
But why is most content still so bad today, despite its clear advantage?
Most of content is now created like a commodity. Cheap, fast, and without any significant value add. Like the toilet paper that you wipe your butt in. Used, and then thrown away.
All you need to do is to search for a piece of information on Google. Like 'best credit cards'. All the articles on the first page looks the same. Why? Because you no longer need to be an expert - you just need to do some desktop research, write in the right prompt on ChatGPT, and voilà you get an article! Making new content doesn't need that much time and effort.
Which is also why much of content today doesn't add significant value to your life.
Just read that article on the best credit cards. Sure, you might now get some new information, but you wouldn't necessarily know any new insight to using it. Something that makes you think in a different way. Because most times, you're just getting more information, but it's not necessarily something that blows your mind and makes you go, 'Oh! I never thought of that in that way before!'
Which sets an even lower bar for what we can get from content.
That's just really sad, because as humans, we have existed because of two things.
We communicate as a species, and we were able to codify our knowledge first through paper, then with books, and lately, with technology. So we build future progress on the shoulders of giants.
But we are increasingly learning to spend less time with long-form content, because of how fragmented our attention has become.
How we do content differently
Yes, yes other content agencies can show you big clients they have worked with previously. But being so big also stops them from bringing a different philosophy to creating for brands.
Most content agencies create for engagement. We create for humans to excel.
I started my first job in 2016 as a contractor with Google, where I saw for the first time what it felt like to constantly have to sell and monetise people's attention. I was colocated with the Google APAC sales office, where Googlers were constantly trying to help businesses to spend more on ads, to get customers to buy more stuff they didn't need.
Many agencies will tell you what clicks and revenues they obtain from the content they make for you. How? Provoke outrage, anger and sadness. That's why you come off social media, often feeling the fear of missing out.
That's why much of our content focuses on helping humans to feel better after reading it. Like this book for stepfamilies, which helped step-children to figure out how they could navigate their own families.
Most agencies focus on short-form, ephemeral content. We focus on long-form, long-term content.
Most agencies will tell you fancy terms like ROAS (return on ad spend), how they can achieve insanely low CPCs (cost per click), and they largely do this by producing content that's supposed to 'stop the scroll'. Something outrageous that will stop people from doom-scrolling. But which also prevents you, the user, from genuinely taking something away, beyond the desire to buy what the agency's client wants you to buy.
Unlike most agencies, we don't sell social media management.
We focus instead on long-form content that takes a longer time to produce, but which we hope would encourage a deeper level of thinking. That's why like this Allkin Book on Grief, it was all of 100 pages, and not something you could whip out in a few hours.
Most agencies focus on skin, or what the content looks like. We focus on the substance, or what's beneath.
Many agencies have great designers. Great writers? Not as much? After all, why bother when you can have ChatGPT as your writer? That's a mistake. ChatGPT can collate information, but it can never create new insight.
As an agency, we are writer-led. This means that our writers conceptualise, structure the thoughts behind the concept, to eventually come up with a useful piece of work.
Our most trying moments
June 2020
As a company, we are finally legally born, so that we wouldn't get in trouble with the tax authorities in Singapore. But John, the founder, had been doing paid writing since he was a 23-year-old university student in 2018.
Oct 2020
John has too much time in COVID and starts writing inspirational books (or so he thinks). It also seems he has a little too much money. He prints 500 sets of 22 inspirational cards for sale. He forgets that people don't write cards these days. He loses $2550 on that project, and earns all of $197.
Sep 2021
John gets his first paid writing gig in Singapore with Singapore Kindness Movement for just $150, and the following month, he (foolishly) decides not to renew his full-time job.
Dec 2021
Again, John doesn't learn his lesson from selling. This time, it's worse. He spends even more, splashing $5850 on the designer, and earning all of $480.
We (try to) pivot.
Feb 2022
John starts working out of his home, and is desperate for business. He takes on weird articles like writing about erectile dysfunction (which he still knows nothing about). He's in the real wilderness now.
Oct 2022
John writes articles for the next 8 months, and by chance, someone asks him if he can make websites. He definitely can (for money!) He finds a kind taxi uncle who can make websites, and together, they start another stream of income making websites.
Jun 2023
John's second team breaks up, after John is unable to find enough revenue to feed all of them. He could call it quits, but for the next 5 months, he takes whatever work he can get. Even random pieces like IT support.
Aug 2023
By chance, John gets an email to ghostwrite a book for a CEO, and he then gets his initial dollars to turn over the year with some money.
We finally get our act together in Nov 2023.
We decide to focus on long-form content that lasts for the long-term.
MINDS Yearbook 2023
We bid for a project to do the yearbook for MINDS, a charity serving those with special needs, and this re-ignites our journey into creating long-form content for clients.
maitri school's website 2024
Then we bid for another long-term project to make Maitri School's website in Jan 2024, building on our momentum.
Oaksplus annual report 2024
With OaksPlus, we finally win our first ever annual report, and discover the power of writing a really good annual report. Stakeholders could immediately see the year's highlights with the design, and enjoy the story with the words.
Remember the last time you kept reading something?
What was special about it, that made you keep reading? I confess. I didn't know initially too. But as I read more and more annual reports (yes, I'm that geek that can talk about how that great embossed logo on The Hour Glass 2024 report made it so classy), I began to see some patterns.
And we decided to try that for our own clients.
How we produce better content
For most other agencies, content is another job. For us, it's more like a mission.
We create with intentionality.
For every piece of client work we take on, we work to understand what the purpose of the intent is. We don't just want to create something that's there to be forgotten. We want to create something that's there to be remembered, used, and that makes people's lives better after they read the content.
We conceptualise with strong writing.
For every content piece that we create, whether it be a short newsletter or a long book, we internally conceptualise what some big ideas can be. We go through what the client has produced in the past, what they stand for now, and what they want the content to do. We then have a concept meeting with the client before going on to mock up some opening pages.
For example, with Allkin, a big charity in Singapore, we created some initial concepts for their agreement and alignment before we went onto producing the rest of the book. This helped us to be congruent and cogent throughout the book.
We craft as we move.
Creating is a messy process, full of ups and downs. That's why during the process, we organise fortnightly meetings with the client to ensure that we are aligned, before we move again.
Why we keep doing what we do
Since the beginning of time, the only reason why humans have existed longer, than any other race, is because of our ability to communicate, and to codify what we communicate. We speak and listen to our fellow humans, and we've discovered ways to record what is communicated.
Over years, centuries and eons, this has helped humans to pass down human wisdom. And this is what has enabled us to continuously build wisdom on the shoulders of giants.
But increasingly, our ability to communicate is threatened by the twin forces of social media, and now, Artificial Intelligence, in the form of ChatGPT and other large language models.
we believe
Human wisdom is worth remembering.
Wisdom made clear
We are on a mission to make wisdom clear again. For too long, we've flooded the world with more and more information, thinking that's helpful. We want to craft content that's clear, easy to read, and that generates long-term value for our clients.
Write first, designed well
As a writer-led agency, we believe writing structures thought, and that once you have good writing, great design naturally follows. That's why we always focus on copy before design, substance before style.
Well made
Most content is here today, gone tomorrow. What a waste. We believe that great content lasts for a long, long time. Else, why bother wasting your time? We create evergreen content that produces longer-term outcomes.