Quicken Loans has a policy that its supervisors need to send an email to their teams with reminders of emails, birthdays and other important dates. Cyndi Lareau ran into the problem of her team ignoring them, so she injected some humor in them to boost their popularity.
"I found a way to make them interesting," Lareau says. "I want people to open this email. I want them to say, 'Oh, an email from Cyndi.'"
Not only were her team members saying that but other members of the mortgage company began requesting to be put on her email list. That led to the creation of
Cup of Zup, a start-up that produces a uniquely amusing pop-culture enewsletter and website. Today the free service has 6,000 subscribers .
"We're growing non-stop," Lareau says. "We're not going to be in the 6,000 number for long."
Lareau is still working for
Quicken Loans as a personal assistant to the company's chairman, Dan Gilbert, however, she thinks Cup of Zup could soon become a full-time gig. Right now she is working to keep people entertained and make the brand a household name.
Source: Cyndi Lareau, director of creativity and awesomeness for Cup of Zup
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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