FOUND BY MAJA
The situation: Maja Lithander Smith is a consummate treasure hunter who has spent decades traveling the globe sourcing one-of-a-kind pieces for her clients and her San Francisco boutique, earning features in Veranda, Forbes, the Financial Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle along the way. She had already built something extraordinary, a brand with a devoted following, a physical store that felt like stepping into a curated world, and a personal aesthetic that was entirely her own. The opportunity wasn't to fix what wasn't working. It was to make the digital experience match the magic of everything she had already built in person.
The insight: Found by Maja's real product has never been the objects. It's the sense of discovery, the feeling of being let into a world most people will never access on their own. The content needed to make the audience feel like they were along for the journey. And once we started filming together, a second insight emerged that changed everything: when Maja stood next to a piece and told its story, the audience responded completely differently than they did to product-only content. Her presence, her enthusiasm, and her love for what she does transforms a beautiful object into something people actually want. The difference wasn't the content. It was her.
The outcome:
A store vignette video produced through the founder-forward storytelling approach reached 2.5K views, 169 likes, 8 comments, and 4 shares, performing above her typical baseline.
A product story video featuring Maja telling the story of a sourced piece of furniture reached 6.7K views, 392 likes, 47 comments, and 86 shares, delivering 3-6x her average view count and a dramatically higher share rate than her baseline content. The 86 shares in particular signaled something significant: the audience wasn't just watching, they were sending the content to friends, turning passive viewers into active advocates.
The most meaningful outcomes happened off-platform. With pieces ranging from $5,000 to $15,000, the founder-forward content drove direct DMs inquiring about specific pieces featured in videos, converting viewers into buyers and generating both direct product sales and in-store foot traffic.
The pattern was consistent throughout the engagement: when Maja showed up on camera and told the story behind a piece, the content performed at a completely different level than product-only posts. The audience wasn't just there for the objects. They were there for her. Found by Maja's online presence finally felt as curated, warm, and discovery-driven as the boutique itself.
The approach: I came in as a strategic partner, developing a personal brand and content strategy that gave Found by Maja's online presence the same coherence and intentionality that defined the in-store experience.
Before building the content framework I defined the core of Maja's personal brand: the treasure hunter with a world-class eye, a story behind every find, and a warmth that made people feel like they'd been let into something rare. That definition became the filter for every content decision that followed, ensuring the digital presence reflected not just what Maja sold but who she was and how she made people feel.
I developed a content pillar framework organizing the content around four core themes. The Hunt captured the behind the scenes of Maja's sourcing trips to Paris, Madrid, London, and Tokyo, turning passive followers into invested participants in the discovery process. The Story Behind the Piece gave individual objects the context and meaning that transformed them from beautiful things into something worth owning, with Maja on camera next to each piece as the most powerful format. How to Live With It provided practical, aspirational content showing how to style and layer the finds in a real home, making the brand accessible and actionable. And Maja's World built the personal brand beneath the business brand, sharing her aesthetic philosophy, her design point of view, and her signature color obsessions in a way that gave the audience a real relationship with the woman behind the finds.
The content calendar was built around the natural rhythm of her buying trips, batching and releasing sourcing content over two to three weeks following each trip to create a sustained narrative arc rather than one-off posts. I also worked with Maja directly on format and filming, shifting from capturing pieces independently to having her physically present with them, touching them, demonstrating them, and bringing them to life through her natural magnetism and storytelling instincts.