My name is Pauliina Rasi. I'm the founder of Pauliina Rasi Communications, a communications and content agency based in Switzerland, specializing in supporting mission-driven businesses and organizations to get their message across. All mission-driven businesses have a story to tell, but getting it across in a fast-paced and saturated social media world is not easy. Through streamlined strategy, quality content, and consistent up-skilling, we support entrepreneurs and professionals to take their message to the next level and turn their content into clients and impressions into impact.
When did you realize you wanted to be a social entrepreneur? How did you define your purpose?
I never wanted to be an entrepreneur! My parents were the ones, and the entrepreneurial life didn't hold any glamour or mystery to me. However, I found that entrepreneurship was calling for me when I became a mother and wanted to find a way to keep using my skills to contribute to the world while being present to my young family as well.
During those first steps on my entrepreneurial journey, I leaned on my passion for writing and started working as a freelance copywriter. I quickly identified a need among early-stage start-ups and social enterprises, as well as one-person brands and very small businesses, for communication and marketing services tailored for them, as many existing solutions mainly served big brands and organizations.
For me, it was also obvious from the beginning that I wanted to develop solutions that were ethical and authentic. Getting your message across is so much more than gaining a huge following or being the one who shouts the loudest. There seemed to be demand for that kind of gentler, more holistic approach in the market.
What was your first project? What were your lessons learnt?
My first projects were articles and website writing for small brands, and while I did love learning more about all those amazing businesses and leveraging my passion to support them, I quickly realized that getting results from good writing was going to be much more complicated than it looked on the surface.
I have a background as a journalist, and I have always been privileged to write for big brands with an established readership. Working with small businesses often required not only creating the content but also building the followers so that someone could see and enjoy consuming that content!
Just as often, however, I realized many passionate business owners and experts didn't know how to go about building those networks, and that's what led me to the path of developing my strategy consultation services for my clients. I wanted to support them not only in crafting a clear message but in the whole plan of getting that message in front of the people who needed to hear it.
Describe your journey? Smooth sailing or a roller coaster ride?
As I never really aspired to become an entrepreneur, I never intentionally built my business skills but mainly focused on my substance matter expertise and writing skills. As you can imagine, this combination led me more towards a rollercoaster ride than a smooth sailing experience! In the early years, I needed to learn a lot of lessons the hard way: through experimentation. Testing and trialing my service portfolio; understanding which types of clients would benefit the most from my approach and methodology; learning how to manage my time and energy; and diving into the ins and outs of business administration, accounting, and profitability. These challenges are familiar to many service entrepreneurs.
The most important lesson I learned through these challenges were trusting myself and staying true to myself. This is what I repeat to my clients over and over again as well: a strong brand can only be built on the foundation of authenticity. Trust yourself and your own vision, and the rest will unfold just fine.
Entrepreneurship is a learning journey through and through, and I'm grateful for all these learnings, as they allow me to put myself in my clients' shoes. More often than not, I literally know what they are going through because I've gone through the same experience myself.
What are you building right now? What is your ambition?
Right now, I'm building a new, more comprehensive communication and marketing support program for small businesses and projects with mighty missions. It will make communication and marketing strategy accessible so that even very early-stage and very small teams can gain more clarity on their message and develop their skills to get that message across.
Deep down, this work is about empowerment—igniting that spark of insight that allows social enterprises to thrive, shine, and grow, no matter how modest the beginnings they come from.
How can everyone support you?
If you believe this approach might help you and your team get your message across more powerfully, I would love to discuss it with you and learn more about your challenges. It would be a pleasure to exchange ideas, learn about your initiative and project, and see if I can nudge you forward with a word of advice or connection. I'm also looking to connect with bigger organisations, for example, nonprofit organisations that provide training and support for early-stage businesses, to make my method available and accessible to wider groups.
If you would like to learn more about Pauliina Rasi Communication, please visit the website and social media pages:
