Tone isn’t something you figure out after the product–market fit. It’s not a checkbox for “once we’re ready to scale”. It’s already out there, whether you’ve thought about it or not.
Your tone exists.
- It’s in the cold email you sent last week.
- It’s on the landing page you shipped in a rush.
- It’s in the error message that says, “Oops, something went wrong.”
That’s your tone. You might not have picked it, but it’s speaking for you anyway. It might be unfiltered. Unintended. And it’s shaping how people see you. Tone isn’t what you say when you finally get around to it. It’s how you sound when you’re not paying attention. It’s what your customers hear long before they understand what you do.
So the question isn’t if you have a tone. It’s, are you choosing it or letting it choose you?
Tone leaks. Always.
Every brand has a tone, whether they’ve defined it or not. It leaks out in language—in
phrasing, punctuation, rhythm. In what you say and what you leave out. In how your writing makes someone feel, even if you didn’t mean it to feel like, well, anything.
And when you don’t choose your tone, you default to one. Usually a boring one. Usually one that sounds like every other startup trying to look smart and sound safe. That’s the real danger: unintentional tone.
It’s not that you’re saying the wrong things, it’s that your message feels like it’s coming from nowhere. Or worse, from the wrong kind of company.
What does an unintentional tone look like?
- It looks like a warm, human founder intro followed by a cold, robotic onboarding email.
- It looks like a cheeky headline paired with corporate-speak product copy.
- It looks like three different people named Zach wrote your homepage.
That’s not quirky. That’s confusing. And confusion kills clarity, fast.
Tone inconsistency doesn’t just make you sound messy. It makes people wonder if you actually know who you are and what you’re talking about. If your tone’s scattered, what else is? Your product? Your priorities? Your reliability? That might sound dramatic, but most first impressions are.
First impressions are tonal.
People don’t read every word. They scan. They skim. But tone? Tone gets through. It’s immediate. It’s emotional. And it makes or breaks trust on impact.
- The right tone makes someone feel like they’re in on it.
- The wrong tone makes someone feel like they’re being pitched.
- No tone makes someone feel nothing, so they leave.
And here’s the kicker: Once someone forms a vibe, it’s hard to shake. If your tone says “we’re boring” or “we’re chaotic”, that sticks, even after you clean things up. That’s why you don’t wait to define your tone. Because you’ve already got one, and it’s already shaping how people perceive you, your brand, and your offering.
So how do you find the tone you’ve been using?
You start listening like you’re not you. Pull up your last five touchpoints—homepage, email, support message, tweet, deck. Ask yourself:
- Do these all sound like they came from the same brain?
- Do they sound like a real person or a committee?
- If this tone belonged to another brand, which one would it be? Would I trust them?
This isn’t about being a perfectionist. It’s about being honest. The sooner you figure out the tone you’re already using, the sooner you can decide if it’s doing what you want it to or quietly working against you. It might be tough, but you can change it. And since you’re already saying something, let’s make sure it’s something worth hearing.
See you in Part 3, where we’ll talk about how tone influences trust.
Cover image: Wacomka