Your brand voice is corporate fan fiction

_{Day 239/100}

Hey—It's Tim. 

I'm re-reading brand voice guides and want to throw my laptop into the ocean.

"We're bold. We're innovative. We're authentic."

SNORE. Just like the other 47,000 SaaS companies.

Here's what actually happens:

Someone in marketing creates a 14-page PDF titled "Our Voice & Tone Guidelines."

Page 3 has a table:

Don't say: "Click here"
Do say: "Explore our solution"

Don't say: "Cheap"
Do say: "Cost-effective"

This isn't a voice guide. It's a manual on how to sound like everyone else wearing a blazer at a conference.

The problem nobody admits

You have no idea what you actually sound like.

I've asked founders this exact question 83 times:

"How would you describe your writing style?"

The answer is always some version of:

• "Conversational but professional"

• "Friendly yet authoritative"

• "Casual with expertise"

Translation: "I want to sound human but I'm terrified of being judged."

So they play it safe. And safe is invisible.

What good writers actually say

I've interviewed people who write well. People whose emails you actually read.

I ask them: "How do you write the way you write?"

The answer is always the same:

"I just... write like I talk?"

They're not consulting a voice matrix. They're not checking if a sentence is "on brand."

They're just being themselves on the page.

And somehow, this never translates when companies try to do it.

Why?

Because 6 people have to approve every sentence. And those 6 people all have different ideas of what "professional" means.

So you get the least offensive version.

The version nobody hates.
Also the version nobody remembers.

So what do you actually do about it?

Here's the thing that kept breaking my brain with Penfriend.

Someone would say: "Can you make the AI write like me?"

I'd say: "Yeah, what's your style?"

They'd send me their brand voice guide. You know the one. Adjectives. Tables. "Don't say this, say that."

I'd read it and know absolutely nothing about how they actually write.

So I started asking for samples instead. Real emails. Blog posts people read all the way through. The stuff that actually landed.

And when I read those? I could see patterns they didn't even know existed.

Not "be conversational."

But: You use sentence fragments for emphasis. You ask three questions in a row when you're setting up a problem. You go specific-abstract-specific when explaining concepts. You use "here's the thing" as a reset button.

That's a voice.

That's something you can replicate.

That's why we rebuilt Echo

This is a tiny, tiny part of an echo build on this very newsletter.

It drops tomorrow.

Here's what it actually does:

You feed it your writing. Emails, posts, rants—whatever sounds like you.

Then it finds:

• How you structure arguments (do you front-load the answer or build to it?)

• Your sentence rhythm (short and punchy? Long and winding? Both depending on context?)

• Where you use questions vs. statements

• How you create emphasis (repetition? Single-line paragraphs? Caps?)

• Your transition phrases ("here's the thing," "so," "look")

• When you get concrete vs. abstract

• How you handle lists and examples

It builds actual rules. Not vibes. Rules.

I’m not kidding when I say rules.

Then when you need new content? It writes using those rules.

Not like ChatGPT-trying-to-sound-human.

Like you.

Here's how you'd actually use this

Right now you've got two options for content:

Option A: Write everything yourself
Takes forever. Sounds like you. Doesn't scale.

Option B: Use AI and edit for 3 hours per post
Faster to start. Still slow to fix. Never quite sounds right.

With Echo:

1. Drop in 4-8 pieces you've written that you're proud of

2. Echo analyzes them and builds your style rules

3. Generate new content - it already follows your patterns

4. Edit for accuracy and specifics, not for voice

You're not fixing robot-speak anymore.

You're fact-checking something that already reads like you wrote it.

That's the difference.

✌️ Tim "The blog post is dead, long live the blog post" Hanson
CMO @Penfriend.ai

Same brain, different platforms: X, Threads, LinkedIn.

P.S. If you want to see my personal style analysis,

my personal echo,

reply with “I WANNA WRITE LIKE TIM” and I’ll send it over so you can see just how detailed this analysis this.

What’s crazy is what we have on the backend is 3x the size. We need all of it to make Penny write like you.

Penfriend.ai
Made by content marketers. Used by better ones.