NAIDOC Week celebrates First Nations voices, stories and culture – proud, persistent and powerful. StartUp Creative founder and Guringai woman Kaylene Langford, known simply as Kay, embodies all three qualities, inspiring a new generation of out-of-the-box thinkers to carve out their own story.

Here, the App Store Editors chat to Kay about her successful business coaching platform and, of course, the apps that foster her creative journey.

When Kay started her business 12 years ago, there was a distinct lack of informative, jargon-free business advice out there. “I wanted to make StartUp Creative the go-to source for Business 101 – broken down without the lingo and the boring business plans,” she says.

Fast forward to today, StartUp Creative has become that source for more than 100,000 creative entrepreneurs around the globe. Kay’s also been busy adding mentor, podcaster, motivational speaker, author and social influencer to her list of accolades.

Her secret-sauce? Stories. “A big part of where I’ve built my career and my audience has been using unconventional stories to pave the way,” she tells us.

For sharing those stories with her community, Kay turns to Substack and Instagram. Kay loves the visual nature of Instagram, making it perfect as the “face of her brand”, but Substack is where the magic really happens. “It’s very much about writing and opinions that authentically connect you with people. It feels like a protective bubble for creatives to write, build community and find work.”

Creating a unique and unconventional brand helped Kay carve out a niche in the stuffy consultation space.

“The idea of StartUp Creative is to be very visual,” she says. “Our imagery stands out as ‘not boring business advice’, so we’ve always tried to be not too polished, like a film that isn’t overly edited.”

To achieve the desired aesthetic across StartUp Creative’s assets, Kay will snap a quick shot or short video on her iPhone and then jump between a variety of editing apps.

When creating Instagram Reels, such as her grounding morning routine, she chooses Edits. “You can cut and paste images onto things, captions are built in and you have better control over overlapping music,” she says. As for quick, templated images such as podcast graphics or image collages, Canva saves the creator tons of time.

If she’s looking to create a film look for a photo, Kay turns to the powerful photo editor VSCO’s Grain Tool. “You can tidy up the contrast and the sharpness with VSCO too, which means you have quality imagery without a big budget,” she adds.

StartUp Creative’s core content pillars are inspiration, education and growth – in that order. “You’ve got to be inspired first, because inspiration helps you take action,” says Kay. And the quotes that she shares play a big part in how she inspires her followers.

The creator swears by Pinterest. “I use a lot of Pinterest for following brand trends, but I also have a whole Pinterest board where I save quotes,” she says. Pinterest is primed for discoverability, too. When Kay sees a quote that resonates, tapping “See more” serves up more of the same in her feed.

And when it comes to education, the ABC Listen app is Kay’s first port of call. “I love that app!” she exclaims. “If I’m doing a talk or a panel event, I do a lot of research on it as they have so much archival content.

“For example, I was recently listening to a podcast about 25 years of Koori Radio, because I'm doing some work on that with the ABC.”

And the growth content pillar? A crucial part is telling black stories. “My passion with storytelling has always been to create spaces for black stories to be elevated and heard,” says Kay. “I speak on these things, but I like to turn back and make sure everyone’s coming along for the ride.”

Artwork by Dylan Finney (Marra and Ngalakgan man, born and raised on Darkinjung Country).

Apple acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their continuing connection to land, culture and community. We pay our respects to Elders past and present.