What I Wish I Knew Before Becoming a Founder: Study Humans, Not Just Business
Authored by: Rinn R
What I wish I had learned properly before becoming a founder is anthropology, myth, and history. And honestly, I feel lucky that by the time I was establishing Echo, I had already gone deep enough into these topics.
As a UX designer, I had touched on this, but not nearly deep enough.
Why, you might ask? It doesn’t feel related to marketing at all. Why not just learn proper business fundamentals or take a marketing course?
Here’s the thing. Anthropology is literally the study of humans, how they form societies, why they build the things they build, what they need to feel safe, what makes them trust a stranger, what makes them follow a leader. Marketing is also all of those things. The only difference is one has been around for thousands of years and the other has a LinkedIn page.
When you study anthropology, you stop seeing consumer behaviour as random. You start seeing the patterns underneath. Why do people buy from brands they feel seen by? Because humans are tribal and have always needed to belong to something. Why does social proof work? Because for most of human history, doing what the group does kept you alive. Why do people respond to storytelling over data? Because before writing existed, story was how knowledge survived. None of this is new. It’s ancient, and it keeps working because humans haven’t fundamentally changed.
Myth matters for the same reason. And history? My teacher, a mythology expert I studied under, said something that stuck with me: “what’s true now, was true then.”
Because hundreds of years ago, people built temples on hilltops not only because it felt closer to god, but because of visibility. That’s an early SEO concept. The higher you were, the more people saw you, the more authority you carried. Now we obsess over domain authority and page rankings. Same game. Better graphics.
When I started applying all of this to my actual workflow, the results were amazing. My clients feel guided, not just processed. They feel like they understand what I’m doing, even when the work is deeply technical. I’d say, “this is for this reason, and that approach won’t work because of this,” and something would click for them. It built trust. They felt like I was someone they could rely on, because I describe everything and gatekeep nothing.
People would even ask me, “aren’t you scared of being this transparent?” And I’d say no, not at all. Because even if I open up everything, no one can replicate my workflow. It’s happened before, a client tries to do it themselves, it gets messy, and they come back.
This is why understanding humans first matters so much. People love being explained to. They love being guided. And when you’re transparent with them, they lean in.
Because whether you’re doing B2B, B2C, or anything in between, your target audience is always a human. Even if the product is pet food or plant compost. You’re not just making ads that say “we’re the best.” You’re building trust. You’re making them feel, yes, I need this.
Author Bio: Rinn R, Founder and Creative Director at Echo Studio, Echo Omni Studio