Create Your Manifesto

Create your own

 How are you going to get people to care about what you do? Perhaps you’ll touch the lives of thousands or millions eventually, but right now let's start with someone, anyone.

Making a manifesto is a first step to building your tribe – a simple way to get those ideas out of your head and into the world... and in a way that connects.

When we first started the Happy Startup School one of the first things we shared was our Happifesto. It clearly laid out what we believed and what drove us. We were inspired by a couple of other companies who did the same thing such as Holstee (see below).

We had already gone through an exercise of defining our core values and had got much clearer on what we believed. That made it easier to make this public and start sharing it with the world.

This approach really kickstarted the growth of our tribe because we weren't trying to sell anything, we were just looking to attract and engage with likeminded people. Of course we had naysayers but that helped us learn whether our message wasn't clear enough and also who we didn't want to work with.

This approach worked for us! That's why we're sharing it with you. It's amazing to think that within a year of doing the Happy Startup School we met more people and created more awareness and impact than in 10 years of running the agency.

So many people came out of the woodwork saying they believed in the same things we did. We had put into pixels what so many of them had only been thinking.

By wearing our values on our sleeve like this it becomes so much easier to make the right connections.

But this takes guts.

You're going have to get comfortable with being a little vulnerable.

But as Brene Brown says, "vulnerability is power".

We want you to craft a message that will feel so authentic and powerful that you’ll want to shout it from the rooftops (even if it feels, you know, a little scary at first).

But only by being vulnerable and opening your heart will you let people in. People connect with human stories and passionate ideas, not polished products.

We want you to use the work you’ve done so far to create a manifesto that inspires and connects people with your mission.

Manifestos are a great way to get your message across quickly with great effect. Take the lead from startups such as Holstee, Maptia and Funbase who’ve all used this approach effectively to get clear on their mission both internally and externally.

The Holstee Manifesto

When they first started out the founders of Holstee sat together to document why they were starting it. They wanted to create something they could reflect back on if they ever felt stuck or found themselves living according to someone else’s definition of happiness. It took hold and helped them build a global audience.

The Maptia Manifesto

The Maptia team spoke at our Summercamp in 2015. They used this manifesto to spread the word of their story sharing platform and get people to sign up to their view of travel.

The Funbase Manifesto

The founder of Funbase was part of our first ever online program nearly 7 years ago. He's now created a coworking space built on the values of this manifesto and runs regular events centred on play and connection.

Over to you

Start with what you believe and stand for, but you can also frame this against your enemy or what you will never do. To help you out here are some trigger questions:

• Why do you exist?

• What vision of the future are you painting?

• Which values will guide you along the way?

• What are you fighting against?

• What will you never do?

Be loud, proud and evocative with your language. Don’t get too worried about what you write and you’ll feel more free and creative. Just start somewhere and fine tune it as you go. You'll then be more likely to unlock ideas that you never knew you had.

We suggest by putting some words and sentences together in a Google Doc. Once you've got your "messy" first draft then you can think about being more creative with it to spark more inspiration.

Some other tips:

• Make it clear and simple – less (words) equals more

• Make it visual – use fonts & colour to bring your words to life

• Be bold – the best manifestos stir passion

To make it visually interesting (remember a picture paints a thousand words) try using one of these Canva templates to bring it to life.

Best of luck.