Various Startups

Every startup I know today is pursuing the strategy of founder-led marketing. The idea is that the founder/CEO is the face of the company and uses their personal brand to create LinkedIn/X/YouTube/Instagram to generate interest in their company. It works well because the founder has a direct relationship with their audience. And it seems like the founder is talking directly to you, like a friend… or an advisor. The founder tells you intimate personal stories about they once solved the problem you’re having right now, or why they understand your business perfectly. It creates an intimate, almost parasocial relationship at scale, as they continue to grow their following Then sales, hiring, raising capital and everything else becomes much easier when you have an audience. But this strategy backfires when the intimacy is gone. When founders start hiring a dozen ghostwriters, content creators, video producers, and other specialists working for them 24/7, they lose their personality, their voice, their authenticity. People can smell it a mile away. You’re no longer talking to the founder, but their ghostwriter in Manilla. Then before you know it, the founder has lost the attention of their audience as quickly as they got it. Lesson: You can (and SHOULD) delegate it, but not before you master it yourself.

I've been seeing a lot of lazy marketing recently from early-stage startups.. FYI: These are NOT effective growth strategies: – Posting on LinkedIn once a week – Using AI to ghostwrite all your content – Starting a podcast nobody will listen to – Sponsoring a generic conference or an event – Buying Facebook/Instagram ads without a strategy – Producing an uninteresting marketing video nobody will watch In 2025 you need to be more resourceful than ever to compete for attention. What the top 1% heads of growth and marketers are doing: – Treating their marketing function as media ... and attracting attention by designing a clever inbound strategy – Developing compelling personal brands and narrative arcs that keep others rooting for them – Building engaged communities that convert those on the fence into customers, and customers into advocates – Crafting magnetic email funnels and producing newsletters that nurture leads to move them through the funnel – Capturing mass attention on social media and turning borrowed audiences into owned and paid ones – Creating amplification networks that get millions of views on launch videos and product announcements – Producing a negative CAC marketing channel where they get PAID to promote their products The top operators know how to engineer virality, capture attention, and turn it into customer interest. What tactics am I missing?

I'm heading to Pioneer this week, Fin's NYC summit for customer service leaders on Oct 9. The lineup of speakers includes... Gary Vaynerchuk and execs from Anthropic, Toast, [solidcore], Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Gamma, and Intercom. It's pretty rare to get C-suite folks from these companies - all in one room! We're big fans of Fin at Fibe. Come hang on Thursday and learn how the top enterprises in the world are doing for customer service w/ AI. Use my link for expedited entry: https://lnkd.in/guV3rUjm

This is my friend Michelle Parsons. You might not know her but there’s a good chance she’s had a life changing impact on you. We met at my Junto event back in 2022. It’s a monthly cocktail party for tech founders and execs. The photo below, that’s from our latest founder dinner. If you haven’t been yet you should come. When we first met, she was the Chief Product Officer at Hinge. I shouldn’t have to explain what Hinge is, but what you should know is that they are responsible for 12 billion matches and 10% of the marriages in the US. Under Michelle, Hinge became the FASTEST-growing dating app in the world, and the team grew 5X. Pretty cool. Michelle just told me she’s building a new company. It’s a new consumer app that reimagines how people understand themselves and connect with the world. She just raised a few million dollars and is now hiring a team, starting with an engineer and designer. If I were any good at engineering or design, I would kill to work for her. But my miss is your shot. If you’re looking for an opportunity on the next consumer rocketship, you should reach out to her (or see the job link in comments).

Some people go their entire lives without asking for what they want. I was guilty of this. I never wanted to burden others with my ask, and didn't have the courage until much later in my career. In hindsight, that was dumb. I was overlooked for promotions, raises, new opportunities, and over the last decade, I left hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table. That's a life changing amount of money. Don't make the same mistake I did. Culturally, it's not always the norm to ask directly for what you want, especially not in Eastern culture, where being direct is considered rude (I lived in China for 20 yrs). But it's silly to be prideful and ask for nothing when someone genuinely wants to help. The antidote: Learn to ask for what you want. Start by premeditating this in advance. Come up with an ask that is direct, clear, and specific so the next time someone asks, "How can I help?" You have a thoughtful answer that helps them identify how they can provide value to you. And don't be afraid of hearing "no." If you plan on having an exceptional career, you will hear this many times over. Part of the process. In the spirit of this question, if anyone out there is wondering how they can help, this is what I always ask for: If you've found my content or community valuable, please post about it (or tell a friend). I will continue doing this over the next decade, and a positive recommendation from you has more impact than you think. Have a great Sunday.

We are throwing our last tech rooftop party on October 1 with The Hustle and Superpower of the season. (This is the actual rooftop we rented out) You'll get the best skyline views in New York, guaranteed. Bonus: You'll get to meet the city's most ambitious people in tech. RSVP: https://lnkd.in/eQNS-3Ya

I didn't work very hard for most of my 20s. I was unfulfilled and stuck in a job I didn't love, making $40k a year, barely saving anything, while I was spending my time watching TV, partying, and drinking. After the first few years of my career, I didn't have much to show for it. Many of my friends had already built valuable skills in tech and finance, and I felt like I had none. I felt hopeless, and I quickly realized that this wasn't the path I wanted to go down. So I completely changed my approach. I threw out my TV. I quit drinking entirely (almost three years alcohol-free today). I left my job, pivoted to a completely different industry, and forced myself to move to a new country, the USA. But I didn't have a lot of friends in America, nor did I know much about the country beyond what I saw online (I had never lived there before). I knew it was going to be difficult, but I also knew it would propel me to new levels of growth. Yet I was so sure that this would change everything for me. I was right. Sometimes all it takes is for you to be honest with yourself and realize that you might be in a bad place. Once you do that, you can start taking big actions. Big actions typically involve moving to a new city, changing your job, leaving a relationship, or putting yourself in a completely new environment. The good news: one big action can completely redefine the trajectory of your life. My advice to you ... is that you got this. All it takes is one step at a time.

Not long ago, someone I had just met (an acquaintance I barely knew) asked me to introduce them to someone in my network. “Hey, can you introduce me to this person? I saw you're connected on LinkedIn. Thanks!” It really irritated me. I wasn’t sure why at first. I love helping people and making introductions. I usually do it instinctively. But something about this one felt off. Maybe it was how they phrased it, or maybe it was how casually they assumed I’d say yes. So I started thinking more about relationships, specifically, the difference between transactional and non-transactional ones, and how social capital plays a role. Around the same time, I came across Vaishnav Sunil's work on social theory, which frankly inspired a lot of my thinking. My thoughts on the topic: === 1. “Transactional” Relationships When people describe someone as transactional, they’re often thinking of a situation like the one I shared at the start – someone asking for a favor the moment you meet them. But here’s the truth: all relationships are transactional. Every relationship operates under a social contract between two people, though the nature of those contracts can vary. What most people label as “transactional” typically refers to relationships where the terms are explicit and conditional. Take an employer-employee relationship: the employer pays a salary, and the employee performs a defined role. The expectations are clear. There’s a direct exchange. Contrast that with a more implicit agreement, like the one between close friends. Nothing is written down, but the unspoken understanding is mutual support, trust, and time. The “contract” is looser, but still present. === 2. Building Trust Let’s say you just met someone and purely saw them as a means to an end – someone who can get you a job, introduce you to an investor, or promote your business. You’d probably make the ask regardless of what it might cost them or how little trust you’ve built. You’d act more transactionally. Now invert it. You meet someone you genuinely want to build a long-term relationship with over decades. You respect them and believe the lifetime value of the relationship is worth more than any short-term gain. You’d probably be more cautious and wait before asking for anything. You’d focus on building trust first. That’s why the example I shared at the beginning irritated me. It signaled that this person saw me as a shortcut to their goal, not a human worth investing in. === So how do you build social capital? 1 – You treat every relationship like it’s going to last for decades. 2 – Build your well long before you need water. 3 – Make introductions thoughtfully. What takes you a minute could result in a decade of value for two other people. 4 – Don’t ask for a favor too early. Or you're signaling that you want to play short-term games.

Advice I wish I had received five years ago: The best time to build a network is when you don’t need it. The worst time is when you do. You should always help others relentlessly without keeping score. And when you finally climb to the top, throw a rope down for the next person. Do this consistently, and it will pay dividends for the rest of your career.