The four things every cult brand has in common

I’m wrapping up a week in New Orleans that’s been equal parts work and magic. This is my hometown and it’s always so damn good to be back.

We hosted three events for Casa Noon over a handful of days — two events with Barre3 and a brand preview poolside event with hospitality group (and former Oui, We Studio client!) Dear Valentine.

In between, I was meeting with women who are interested in joining the creator investor round we just opened for Casa Noon, as well as New Orleans-based Oui, We Studio clients. It’s been my favorite kind of OOO week.

Being in these rooms all week made this issue of the Unschool News feel even more relevant, because every conversation I had kept coming back to the same thing: the difference between brands people are aware of and brands people are seriously committed to.

So let’s talk about that.

We’ll walk through how you create something that turns casual viewers into real fans and friends (something so much deeper than the buzzword “community”).

You likely already know that the Cult Brand Blueprint™ is the framework I use in everything — our accelerator, our private consultancy, and when I’m speaking stages. But what does that actually look like in practice, through real clients from our world?

Let's get into it.

There's a system behind every brand that generates genuine attachment. Not a rigid formula — more of a recognizable shape. And when you start looking for it, you see it everywhere: in the founders whose names become shorthand for a worldview, in the products people carry like talismans, and in the experiences people post just to show they were there.

We've distilled that shape into four pillars at Oui, We Studio: Founder Lore, POV, Brand Rituals, and Cult-Level Vibe. Here's what they look like when they're working.

#1 Founder Lore

Founder lore is the difference between knowing of a founder and feeling strangely familiar with one.

It's not oversharing. It's not personal branding in the performative sense. It's the accumulated detail — the stories that repeat, the standards held publicly, the references made, the way someone moves through their life online over time. A founder who does this well stops feeling separate from the brand. People don't just buy the offer. They buy into the person behind it.

Our client Hannah, @theroadtohannah, is a clear example of this working at a high level. Her audience isn't only connected to the information she shares about healing, relationships, and emotional growth — they're connected to her.

Over time, that trust compounds. The audience starts trusting the worldview behind the content, not just the content itself. That's the real function of founder lore: the founder becomes the reason people stay, not just the reason they arrived.

For the founders reading this — you don't need to document everything or perform vulnerability to get here. What you need is something consistent and recognizable that people can hold onto over time. Not every post. The accumulated detail is what builds the relationship.

#2 POV

A strong point of view is usually what separates a brand people consume from a brand people reference.

It's not what the brand talks about — it's how the brand interprets something familiar in a way that feels genuinely its own. The strongest POVs make people feel like someone finally articulated something they already felt but didn't quite have language for.

Helen Phelan, @helenvphelan, does this with precision that's hard to miss once you see it. She doesn't position movement as fitness, productivity, or self-improvement. She positions it as devotion, sensuality, discipline, artistry, intuition. The phrase "eroticizing discipline to the point of devotion" isn't simply a tagline — it's Helen’s worldview. And it tells you immediately whether you're in or out.

That's the function of a strong POV. It filters. It gives people a lens through which to see something — and once they adopt that lens, they carry it into the world as an extension of the brand itself. The people in Helen's community don't just consume her content. They've internalized a way of thinking about their own bodies and practices. That's a different kind of loyalty than a follow.

For your own brand: your POV isn't what you're talking about. It's the specific angle you take on it, every time, consistently enough that people know what you're going to say before you say it — and choose to stay because of how you say it.

#3 Brand Rituals

Cult brands give people something to do, not just something to buy.

The ritual doesn't have to be elaborate. It can be carrying the cup. Collecting the packaging. Taking the photo strip and taping it to a mirror. Bringing a friend back. Over time, the behavior becomes associated with belonging — and the brand stops being a product and starts being a practice.

New York Memento, @newyorkmemento, is one of the most thoughtful examples of ritual architecture I've seen built intentionally. What looks like a photo booth is actually something more deliberate: two minutes, four flashes, something very real to take with you. The experience works because it reinforces the belief at the center of the brand — presence over performance.

New York Memento is a memory infrastructure.

And here's the strategic point of that: every time someone shares a photo strip or mentions the experience, they're doing brand work. The ritual creates a natural loop of content, conversation, and return. That's worth more than most paid campaigns.

For founders: the question is, what's the one repeatable behavior you want your brand associated with? Not the purchase itself — the thing that happens around it.

#4 Cult-Level Vibe

Vibe is emotional recognition before explanation.

Before someone fully understands what a brand offers, they already understand the feeling. The pacing. The visual atmosphere. The tone. The references made and the ones deliberately left out. The things implied but not said. The strongest brands build a world that people recognize instantly — and want proximity to before they've made any decision to buy.

Nadeen Hui, @nadeenhui (who’s grown from 60K followers to over 200K since she booked a Brand Strategy Plan, then joined our Cult Brand Accelerator, and then worked with us as a studio client), built this with consistency and specificity that reads as effortless from the outside but is clearly intentional in practice. Nothing in her feed feels like it wandered in from somewhere else.

The cohesion Nadeen creates gives a kind of pull — people want proximity to what she's building before they fully understand why they're drawn. They're not responding to a single post. They're responding to the accumulated atmosphere of her brand, and that atmosphere was built through a thousand small, intentional choices over time.

Vibe isn't just an aesthetic. It's many little decisions. It's choosing, consistently, which images, which words, which energy, which things to leave in and which to cut — until the brand has a personality that precedes it.

Want to work with us? Learn more about what we do at Oui, We Studio. If you’re just getting started the Brand Strategy Planner is a perfect first step. We have space for 3 more brand plans this month, book yours now to get it before the end of the month.

This isn't a loyalty program or a mastermind. This is an opportunity to have a vested interest in a brand and get access to the new OOO Club: a founding community of creators and founders who travel together, show up IRL, and build alongside the brand.

If you want to learn more about the opportunity, we're hosting another info session on Thursday, May 21st at 4 PM PT / 6 PM CT / 7 PM ET — join via Zoom here. Or just reply to this email and we'll find time to talk through it.

Casa Noon is my luxury sun-and-skin brand built around a real white space in beauty — the woman who lives outdoors, loves sunshine, and refuses to choose between great skin and being outside. The Sabbatical Hydrating + Balancing Serum has already been covered by Town & Country (twice), Byrdie, Beauty Independent, and Fashionista. We’re hosting another information session for a founding group that wants to get in early and grow alongside the brand.

(This is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or solicitation to buy any security.)

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I come in as your dedicated brand strategist — the person all brand decisions run through. Think of me as your brand sherpa: I know where you're going, how to get there, and I make sure nothing goes out misaligned. Each month, we have a strategy call, and you get an updated content plan and brand strategy document. It's all built on my Cult Brand Blueprint™ framework.

This one is for you if you have an audience, a product that's ready, and a brand that needs the strategic infrastructure to match. Beauty founders, fashion labels, wellness brands, creative entrepreneurs — the ones who are generating revenue and know that what they're missing is the foundation underneath.

This is the number one request we've been getting. You need a creator to help you — and you don't want to go to a traditional agency for that.

So here's the plan: You'll get brand strategy from me. Content from my Studio team, created and delivered to you each month — ready to post. It'll be either photo-forward or video-forward, depending on where your brand lives and what we decide you and your company need.

This one is for you if your brand needs help and you need a team that can execute from a brand brief — not a mood board and a vibe.

Engagements start at $3,500/month.

If you're interested, simply let us know here, and we'll set up time to chat.

One more thing before you go: we turned part of the Cult Brand Blueprint™ into a free guide — How to Build a Brand World — and it's built for the founders who are ready to go deeper than aesthetics. Stay specific. Stay honest about who your brand is for. The brands that do that work don't have to fight for attention — they attract it.

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