- Find Me in Seattle
- Posts
- 001: Seattleites You Should Know: Conner Cayson
001: Seattleites You Should Know: Conner Cayson
Find Me in Seattle Newsletter
You can expect a sponsor of each newsletter to be here.
Click the image if you want š
001: Welcome to your first ever, Find Me in Seattle Newsletter. Iām Conner, your host here in the inbox.
If you havenāt done so already, please make sure you mark my email address as ānot spam,ā so this doesnāt end up somewhere it shouldnāt be (like 3rd and Pine St after 10pm, or anytime lately).
This newsletter will be the center point of Find Me in Seattle moving forward. It will arrive in your inbox every week, and will include much more than I post on social media.
I have a bunch of goals for this email project, but the most important one is to stay true to my own style and continue what I have created on IG, Tiktok and Youtube. This newsletter will be a demo of how I plan to organize my weekly blast. So lets jump into it!!
ā Conner Cayson
Conner Cayson
Founder & Writer, Find Me in Seattle
Conner Cayson, Writer of Find Me in Seattle
āJust because you love to bake cupcakes, does not mean you should start a cupcake business.ā
FMiS started as an instagram account in 2016, something that I wanted to use for my door to door sales job. I turned Find Me in Seattle into my full time job in 2018, and have been self employed ever since. I have an odd business and lifestyle, but Iāve created something that Iām very proud of because it truly represents me, and provides me unique opportunities to meet some of Seattleās most unique businesses.
Would You Like to Buy a Map Ad?
From 2013, to the end of 2017, I spent Monday thru Friday walking around Seattleās neighborhoods, selling ads on a physical map to local businesses. In that 4.5 years, there were few streets that I didnāt walk down, doors I didnāt open at least once, or coffee shops I hadnāt worked from. It was a weird job for a millennial to have, but the company had aspirations of being a tech business and app, and the physical maps were a good way to make relationships with businesses.
I met a TON of great people including business owners, baristas, bartenders, marketing managers, concierge, artists, craftspeople and more. Everyday I had coffee meetings with people starting their own businesses and my curiosity drove me ask questions about how they started, what their struggles were and how I could be helpful (but I always intended to sell them an ad on the map š).
Starting an Instagram Account
I had all of these positive business relationships around town, but we didnāt have an audience. Seattleites didnāt know about our maps or what we did, I knew I had to find a way to get the word out, and Instagram became the solution. At the time, I figured the worst case scenario was that my girlfriend (now wife) could see where I went every day.
Instagram Stories Became My Entire Life
I started posting on IG stories religiously. I would be in Fremont at 10am to get coffee, and start the day with a selfie video that said āI am on 34th in Fremont, and here are the 5 businesses Iām going to visit today.ā I would proceed to walk into every business on that block, meet whoever was working, learn a tip about their business and who the person with the money was (becauseā¦ sales). Iād take a photo, and post what I learned on stories. I slowly started to get random strangers following my account, curious where Iād end up next.
Learning Where Businesses Needed Help
I learned a few helpful skills at that startup. I was working with engineers, so I dabbled in Wordpress and Squarespace. I was taking photos for our advertisements, and I was experimenting with all the social platforms of the time. This is when we thought Snapchat was going to be bigger than Instagram.
I needed to have an arsenal of tools, so when I asked business owners what they needed help with, I had an answer. Youād be surprised how many people donāt think to Google it first.
Starting My Own Business
There were some ups and downs of that sales job, and financially I was never secure. When it came time to leave, I knew I wanted to start my own business. So the easiest thing to start, was selling myself as a marketing consultant. I set up meetings with my 5 best business relationships, and 4 of them turned into part-time work.
Now, in 2024, Iām entering my 6th year of business and itās morphed a lot since the beginning. I make most of my living shooting and editing short form videos for other Seattle businesses like Windermere Real Estate and Metropolitan Market.
But whatās connected my transition of business has always been my social media accounts.
Telling Stories of Seattleites and their Businesses
Posting everyday became a practice of storytelling, and it taught me skills I didnāt have before. Iāve made over 1400 posts about Seattle restaurants, artists, stores, events, and hotels. If you scroll back through my IG timeline, youāll see a progression of style, especially in the past two years.
Seattleites You Should Know
In 2023, I stopped posting photos. I focused on only making narrative-driven, 60-second videos. And in that process, the headline of āSeattleites You Should Knowā was created. The feedback from this series has been different from the hundreds of other videos Iāve published. It has been a venture outside of the foodie realm that Iām usually associated with. So now that we are here, deep inside my first newsletter, I am committing to the next step of my business.
I want the newsletter to become the center point of Find Me in Seattle. I anticipate that my content will show up here first, before IG or Tiktok. And I hope are you ready to join me on this new creative endeavor.
Thank you for reading this deep into episode 001. I am deeply grateful for the time you spent here.