Influencer’s Senior Content Manager, Emily Newton, sat down with SULT founders Milly Goldsmith and Henry Porpora to discuss why storytelling, community and stripped-back content have been central to the brand’s growth, from building trust online to landing on the shelves of Boots.

Often, storytelling becomes most visible when a brand is preparing to launch or scale. The product is defined, retail conversations are progressing, the marketing calendar is mapped out, and the narrative develops alongside the launch campaign. The story plays a key role in the go-to-market moment, rather than being consistently visible throughout the build.

SULT has approached this differently. When Emily met founders Milly and Henry, what emerged was a picture of a brand where storytelling is not simply a campaign layer but part of how the business operates day to day. Their audience has not just been introduced to the brand at key milestones, they have watched decisions unfold, seen ideas take shape and followed the reality of building something in real time.

“We’ve built this in public from the start,” Milly says. “People are part of the brand. They’re watching it grow with us.”

That visibility shapes how audiences engage with both the brand and its products. Rather than presenting a finished identity, SULT has allowed people to see the thinking behind it. Familiarity builds gradually, often long before a customer reaches a product page.

Ideas tend to emerge from everyday moments rather than structured brainstorms. Milly describes an ongoing exchange of observations, conversations and small frustrations that gradually evolve into content.

“Our ideas mainly stem from real-life things that happen to us,” she says. “We’re constantly messaging each other back and forth with ideas or observations, then working out how to bring them to life in quite unique, often quirky ways.”

That instinct to document rather than stage content also shapes how the brand approaches opportunities. Henry recalls wanting to collaborate with Joe & The Juice, a space they were already spending time in and whose audience felt naturally aligned.

“We were like, right, how can we actually get in front of them and bring people on the journey of why we wanted to partner with them,” he says. “So Milly storyboarded why we work there and why it made sense for us to be stocked there, because we share the same audience. We turned that into a video to tell the story, rather than just sending a boring cold email.”

Instead of positioning the partnership as a finished outcome, the reasoning behind it became part of the narrative. The audience could see the intent and context, not just the result. This approach reflects a broader shift in creator-led brands, where transparency often drives stronger engagement than perfectly packaged announcements.

Milly notes that storytelling-led content consistently performs best with their audience. “Any time that we’re bringing the audience into our story, our journey, what sort of goal or thing we’re trying to achieve, that’s when our community really, really gets stuck in and that’s when we know it’s going to do well.”

Henry describes conversion as an extension of that relationship rather than a single transactional moment. “It’s getting people into our ecosystem, selling the feeling of the product itself,” he says. “Then once they’re in the ecosystem, we can keep telling the story of who we are.”

By the time customers encounter a product, many already understand the direction the brand is moving in and what it is trying to build. As Milly explains, “They’re watching our brand and they’re also already a customer because they want to be part of it.”

Participation plays an important role in sustaining that connection. Rather than positioning the audience as passive observers, SULT has actively involved its community in shaping elements of the brand’s development.

“We actually let our community build our products with us,” Henry says. “That’s everything from being involved in photoshoots to influencing things like the box design.”

That level of involvement creates a sense of shared investment and strengthens the relationship between brand and audience. Trust develops through visibility, particularly when both progress and setbacks are openly discussed.

“The main thing is building that trust with them and we do that by sharing absolutely everything, from the really good things but also the really, really bad things that we probably don’t even want to admit to ourselves,” Milly says.

Much of SULT’s content follows an ongoing narrative structure rather than one-off moments. This continuity allows audiences to track progress over time and understand how individual decisions contribute to broader direction. “We always have series content,” Milly says. “Anything that has a journey to it, not just a one-off video.”

These series’ often rely on simple formats, including direct-to-camera updates and whiteboard explainers that show where the business is today and where it is aiming to go.

“It’s almost like being back at school,” she says. “We show people what we do, how we’re doing it and hopefully the end result.”

The approach prioritises clarity over production value. “People love content that’s stripped back and just real human beings talking to a camera,” Milly says. “They just see us as two human beings just building a brand. That’s literally what it is.”

Maintaining that recognisable human voice also informs the brand’s view on AI-generated content. While automation tools can support workflow efficiency, Milly believes individuality remains central to audience connection.

“Your voice is the most creative voice,” she says. “You can’t get more creative than your thoughts and your experiences.”

As the business has grown, this approach has extended into retail. Their journey into Boots became part of the story the audience had already been following, rather than a standalone announcement. Each stage felt connected to the one before it.

Henry notes that the company has been built without external investment, making progress particularly visible. “We’ve bootstrapped the whole thing. It’s all our own money,” he says. “People think we have more backing than we do, but everything is real.”

Across the conversation, a consistent principle emerges. The most effective content is not necessarily the most polished, but the most transparent. When audiences can see what is happening and why, familiarity develops naturally and trust builds over time.

SULT’s approach shows how storytelling can operate as part of the business itself, shaping perception, strengthening connection and supporting commercial growth simultaneously.

As Milly puts it, “Integrity first. The best story always comes from real truth and experience.”

Often, the most compelling narrative is simply the one that shows the work as it unfolds.

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