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Welcome back to the Collective. This past week has been incredibly exciting as we launched our first non-interview style series, Brand Blueprints, in partnership with Collective Design Agency. What started as strategic conversations about content collaboration turned into a full-scale partnership that demonstrates how organizations can create educational content together while strengthening business relationships.

Today, we're sharing the launch of Brand Blueprints featuring Arwa Sharif and An Bui from Collective Design Agency, a Vietnam & NYC-based design agency that has been instrumental in building out our own Coeus Collective brand. We knew that both of our organizations would be seeking ways to empower the brand builders in our communities, and the best way for us to extend our mutual expertise was by taking advantage of digital distribution networks.

This marks our evolution from podcast-first storytelling to multi-format content creation, showcasing how strategic partnerships can activate through content rather than traditional business development. Our team, including co-founders Antonio DiMeglio and Leon Li, along with talented creators like Arwa, are ready to collaborate on similar series with partners who share our commitment to educational content.

Despite being our first YouTube-focused series, Brand Blueprints tackles the fundamental challenge we consistently heard from entrepreneurs: how to stand out in increasingly crowded markets. An Bui, Minh Nguyen, and the rest of the CDA team proved to be incredible collaborators in bringing this vision to life.

Today’s newsletter offers a behind-the-scenes look at:

• how we structured a strategic content partnership that goes beyond cross-promotion;

• the production approach that showcases both organizations' expertise authentically;

• the logistics and considerations unique to multi-format content launches;

• the level of integration needed to maximize impact across digital and live event channels; and

• how collaborative content can strengthen business partnerships while serving audiences.

We founded Coeus Collective specifically to tell stories that go beyond typical founder narratives. In showing how strategic partnerships can create educational content that serves entrepreneurs at critical decision points, the Brand Blueprints launch perfectly exemplifies our replicable approach to collaborative thought leadership.

Ok, ready? Let's get to it.

The Challenge

After establishing our foundation through our interview-style podcast, we identified a gap that kept surfacing in our conversations with entrepreneurs. While our podcast format worked well for storytelling, we weren't creating content that directly showcased our strategic expertise. We were telling stories about business strategy, but we weren't demonstrating how strategic thinking actually works in practice.

At the same time, our relationship with Collective Design Agency had evolved beyond a typical vendor relationship. CDA had been instrumental in developing our own brand strategy, and both organizations shared a commitment to empowering entrepreneurs and brand builders. Their Co-Founders An Bui, Minh Nguyen, and the rest of their team had become genuine collaborators who understood our mission at a deeper level.

The intersection of these two realizations led to an obvious question: what if we created content together that combined our production expertise with their design and branding knowledge? Rather than creating content about collaboration, we decided to create content through collaboration.

Meanwhile, Arwa Sharif had been developing within our organization in a way that impressed everyone on the team. She had started as an NYU Stern undergraduate Fellow during our earliest stages, being present in-studio for every single episode of our first podcast season. Her consistent engagement and strategic thinking capabilities made it clear she was ready for a bigger role.

Production Approach: Building for YouTube

The series was shot in a professional studio in NYC, with Arwa and An positioned at a table to create a discussion-focused vibe that felt authentic and conversational. We deliberately chose this setup over a traditional interview format because the table setting encourages natural dialogue and makes complex topics feel more accessible.

Understanding YouTube's unique requirements, we incorporated engaging animations throughout each episode. The market mapping exercise in episode one, for example, uses dynamic visuals to help viewers understand strategic positioning concepts that might otherwise feel abstract. These animations don't just look good: they serve a specific educational purpose by making complex ideas immediately clear!

We also targeted the 6-10 minute YouTube sweet spot for each episode. This timeframe is short enough for people to consume in one sitting, but long enough to provide a complete thought worth of impact. Rather than cramming everything into longer episodes that might lose viewers' attention, we focused on delivering one comprehensive concept per episode that entrepreneurs could immediately apply to their businesses.

The intentional design also allowed both Coeus Collective and CDA to showcase complementary expertise throughout the journey. Strategic thinking and creative implementation work together across all nine episodes, demonstrating the partnership value naturally.

A Season-Long Comprehensive Brand Journey

Before diving into the partnership dynamics, it's important to understand the intentional structure behind Brand Blueprints. This wasn't just a series of random conversations about branding. We designed a complete educational journey that takes entrepreneurs from foundational strategy through tactical implementation.

The nine-episode arc follows the natural progression of brand development:

Episodes 1-3: Foundation Building. Brand Strategy covers defining your mission, values, and positioning. Brand Persona focuses on crafting a distinct voice, tone, and personality. Logos explores how great visual identities are built and why they matter.

Episodes 4-6: Visual Systems. Colors teaches entrepreneurs to choose a color system that evokes emotion and builds consistency. Typography demonstrates how to use type to communicate clearly and intentionally. Brand System shows how to build a cohesive brand framework across platforms.

Episodes 7-9: Digital Implementation. Website Strategy covers turning your brand into a digital destination that converts. UX Design focuses on designing intuitive experiences that keep users engaged. Mobile Best Practices concludes by teaching optimization for the device your audience uses most.

This structure ensures that viewers who watch the entire series don't just get random branding tips. They get a complete methodology for building and implementing their brand from scratch. Each episode builds on the previous ones, creating genuine educational value rather than disconnected content pieces.

New York Tech Week IRL Integration Strategy

The series launch wasn't isolated, but rather integrated with our broader strategic initiatives to maximize impact and reach. We coordinated the Brand Blueprints launch with our Brand Blueprint: The Founder's Guide in the Age of AI event during NYC TECH WEEK by a16z. The event features moderation from our team alongside CDA Co-Founder An Bui with industry experts including Katie Perry, Max Rivera, Julia Kolodkina, Natalyia Eidelman, and Riccardo Valsecchi, generating over 350 RSVPs currently.

This multi-channel approach creates community around the content themes that extend far beyond digital consumption. YouTube serves as the primary platform, while Instagram collaboration posts announce the launch, newsletter content explores the series creation process, and the live event provides in-person community building. Different audience segments could engage with the content through their preferred channels, amplifying reach organically.

This partnership activation with CDA goes well beyond simple collaboration. We created joint content that showcased complementary expertise, enabled cross-promotion through both organizations' networks, established a shared thought leadership platform, and built foundation for ongoing collaboration opportunities. The authentic integration seeks to feel natural rather than promotional because both organizations were genuinely invested in the educational outcome.

The Template & Looking Forward

This experience created a framework that we can adapt for different industries, partnership types, and content formats. The key is identifying partners who bring complementary expertise that enhances rather than duplicates our strengths, share audience values and educational approach, demonstrate collaborative mindset rather than just cross-promotional interest, and align strategically with our broader organizational goals.

The content development process begins with identifying what unique perspective we can offer together that neither could achieve alone. We define clear educational outcomes, plan integration strategy across multiple channels, design for authenticity through conversation rather than presentation, and create coordinated distribution approaches that maximize reach.

The methodology, strategic approach, and execution details we've outlined serve as a template that can be adapted while maintaining the core principles that made this collaboration successful: authentic value creation, complementary expertise combination, integrated multi-channel distribution, and genuine commitment to educational outcomes over promotional objectives.

Most importantly, Brand Blueprints represents our evolution as an organization: from content creators to strategic collaborators who can use digital media and production capabilities combined with a community who is willing to participate in in-person events to activate partnerships, develop talent, and serve audiences simultaneously through thoughtful content initiatives that create lasting value for all participants.

Welcome to the Collective

If you’re new here: welcome! This newsletter is written by Coeus Collective Co-Founders Antonio DiMeglio and Leon Li.

Coeus Collective is a founder-powered media and community platform elevating the most innovative minds in entrepreneurship, technology, and venture capital. Through podcasts, events, and digital media storytelling, we help founders and VCs develop their audiences of builders and innovators. Past events have featured Daniel Lubetzky (KIND Snacks, Shark Tank), Michael Baum (Splunk), and Siya Raj Purohit (OpenAI).

Typically, this newsletter revolves around an idea we can’t stop thinking about (like The Dopamine Economy), a look into what’s happening in NYC (like last week’s email about our New York Tech Week events slate), or even a deep-dive into an iconic company or individual in our industry (as we did in our Icons Series: IBM article). Sometimes, we’ll use it to highlight a behind-the-scenes look into what our team is working on, like we did in this article!

Our goal is to provide a unique perspective for a community of Founders & VCs who read in between the headlines. We hope to see you here in the inbox and at our events this New York Tech Week next week! RSVP to all of our events here. 

See you next week,

The Collective

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