The Untapped Power of the Founder's Brand

You've heard online gurus talk about building a "personal brand".

You want to try building your Founder's Brand, but you're wondering,

".... I am not famous, I don't have a lot of followers. What should I do? What should I talk about? Why would they listen to me? How would this help my business?"

Lot's of questions. Let's unpack.

I wrote this for founders and business owners. Anyone that runs a business or wants to run a business, because, I am going through this journey myself. Sharing what I am learning might help one of you too.

Now, an important distinction we need to get out of the way.

We are building a public brand for the founder of the business. We are not building an "influencer persona", "online guru" or "lifestyle channel".

So, that being said, let's focus on three key strategies and expand on each:

#1 Tell the story your audience can relate to

Compared to big names like Hormozi and Neil Patel, your advantage as a small business founder is relatability. Because, let's face it, you're in business to serve other businesses, so your story as a founder matters.

You're "one of us".

Ideally you want to write for the end customer (client) and your story should tell why did you build the product (or service or software or digital product)?

Ok, meta warning….

I started creating content on subject of marketing, because I wanted to help other founders to get noticed.

During period of 2008-2016 I've failed a handful startups (my own, vc funded and bootstrapped with partners). In all cases, it was because we struggled to reach our target markets and do so on a realistic budget.

Today, I have a service based business, a video production and marketing agency - Povidom, that works with SaaS clients.

My story here is my personal brand story, what I call - The Founder's Brand. However, on Povidom channel - it's my experience working with SaaS clients.

As you can see, story changes depending on your end reader (client). Both are my stories, but messaging and positioning changes depending on target audience.

If your story doesn't share your clients' or customers' struggle, share the story of your first clients (customers). What journey they went through and how your service (or product) helped them.

#2 Documenting The Journey: Multiple Paths to Relatability

Gary Vee popularized this concept and it made sense for influencers and individual creators, but this strategy doesn't make sense for some Founder's Brand, especially if the founder isn't their own customer.

Let me explain why.

I often see this problem in the Build-in-Public community. Indie founders discuss their tech stacks, ProductHunt launches, or server architecture debates.

Why? Because your customers don't care about your technical struggles—they care about solving their own problems. They don't care about that journey and often cannot even understand the technical struggles you're facing. Instead, they want to see people like themselves who solved similar problems.

Unless, of course, your target audience is other indie founders or builders

While documenting journeys creates compelling content, successful Founder's Brand often uses a blend of approaches. It has a mix of Founder's personal stories and Customers' stories. They talk about parts of their journey that's relevant to end customer (or client) and they talk about real customer experience as well.

The most effective strategy often combines those approaches.

This gives you flexibility to create authentic content even when your personal journey or customer stories aren't the perfect fit for every topic.

#3: Study Successful Creators, Adapt Their Strategies (Not Their Content)

I remember hearing advice, "imitate the greatest and you'll become great." But I greatly misunderstood that concept. I thought it meant "steal ideas from others."

And only recently I understand what it means to "imitate" ethically. And I think word "imitate" is misleading, the better term is "model after".

For example, studying how others structure their content—whether they focus on short-form videos or in-depth articles. Or noticing which topics consistently generate engagement in my industry and leaning into those topics with my content.

You can analyze their audience growth tactics without copying the substance of what they create.

On the other hand, problematic copying includes directly using someone else's examples or stories as your own or rephrasing their unique insights without giving proper credit. I never understood why is it so hard to give credit to original author?

For example, I follow creators like Dan Koe, Ed Lawrence and Sean Cannell, but I don't simply repeat what they say. Instead, I try their recommended strategies in my own business. Then I document my results (bad or good) and finally, I give credit (i.e. "I tried Sean's YouTube Challenge for 30 days")

But ultimately I focus on:

• What are they doing that works?
• What topics are they talking about?
• What tactics seem effective?
• What's trending? Why?
• How do they create their hooks?
• What type of editing (video or text) is popular right now?

For my other channel (my video marketing business), it's Rob Walling (from MicroConf) and Dan Martell, because, they also target SaaS founders and work with SaaS businesses.

Once again, we are not taking ideas and re-telling them. We are taking ideas, using them, trying them and telling everyone our results.

Take Home Points

The strategy for Founder's Brand content is simple.

1. Tell your story and why you build the business you built, but make it relatable. If the story is about a a struggle you fixed for yourself, then
2. Tell your journey, otherwise tell the journeys of your clients (customers). Sometimes you can tell both if your role is instrumental in theirs.
3. Borrow strategies and ideas for content from your inspiration, but don't copy them.

We have to make it about our audience. If you're telling the story, what can THEY gain from it?

That means we should give them practical advice from our experience or offer a different perspective.

As you develop your Founder's Brand, you'll naturally share your perspective—but make sure these opinions are grounded in your actual experience. Even if you're new, you can offer valuable insights by:

1. Clearly framing your level of expertise: 'After six months running my business, here's what I've learned...'
2. Connecting opinions to specific experiences: 'When I tried this approach with my first three clients...'
3. Backing opinions with research when your experience is limited: 'While I'm early in my journey, industry data suggests...'

Your unique perspective has value precisely because you're not an established expert—you're solving problems in real-time, just like your audience.

I am observing small and big business owners aggressively pursue building their personal brands. Even billionaires that probably do not care about making more money, still join creator's economy and share their knowledge online.

Whether you have a multimillion dollar SaaS, a service based agency or just sell fitness courses on Udemy, people want to know the "source" and nothing can give them that relatable perspective better than meeting the Person behind the Brand (business).

Keep in mind, business owners do buy from other business owners. Most of us are not selling to faceless corporations or bureaucratic governments. We are selling to other SMBs just like us. I.e. "he's one of us", so being a relatable face of a company matters a lot.