Last week, I teamed up with Jess Owens for a Founder Learning Session on personal brand building and how it can get customers and funding!

We covered:

• why social presence matters more than you think

• getting results when you’re tight on time and money

• how it actually speeds up your fundraise

Here’s the FULL SLIDE DECK, with a bulleted summary below.

Not included: excellent mom jokes, excellent audience questions, and the screenshots of fun wins! Can’t get everything from the Clif Notes AI summary! 😉

The Founder Brand Playbook

Why Personal Brand?

Not a vanity project.

Business ROI:

• Builds trust

• Establishes credibility

• Keeps you top of mind (more effective + easier than nurture campaigns)

• ALL OF THOSE THINGS → Shorten the sales cycle

Business Moats:

• Cost-effective distribution channel

• Outperforms company brand 5-10x

• Humanity is your edge in an AI world

How (Aka Not As Scary As You Think!)

The biggest myth about personal brand?

That you need to have great (smart, unique, well-produced) content.

You don’t.

• CONSISTENCY. → most important!!!!! 1x/wk over years is better than 5x/wk for a month.

• Start small, add slowly. → pick 1 thing to try, make it easy!

• Obvious is okay. → see “easy content” ideas.👇 No rocket science!

• Easy content → upcoming events, event recaps, favorite resources, customer wins, industry trends.

• Focus on your niche. → you don’t need to be famous, only known by your ideal audience!

• Test and iterate. → see what works and what you like. brand is built through action not thinking.

Want the full playbook? Read How To Start Your Founder LinkedIn Journey.

Personal Brand + Fundraising

Here’s the part investors don’t tell you:

Your personal brand is doing work before you walk in the room. They’ve already looked you up. What did they see?

A strong personal brand:

• Establishes trust, track record, and communication style

• Leads to efficient customer growth, better CAC

• Builds business moats

…aka a FASTER FUNDRAISE!!!!!!

You also need to have a great business. Brand alone is not enough. But, same as the customer sales cycle, personal brand can attract, filter, and expedite a deal!

3 Tips To Get Started

1. Get help.

AI, an intern, an agency. Whatever gets momentum going!

2. Nobody cares.

Not in a mean way. In a “you won’t have hate mail from one typo” way, so don’t let perfect be the enemy of published!

3. Take one small, doable action.

Pick the absolute smallest thing you can commit to and get started!

The Marathon

I firmly believe that a personal brand is like a marathon.

Anyone can do it.

No marketing genius or elite athletics required.

What IS needed:

• willingness and desire for the outcome

• commitment to the work over months and years

We may not all qualify for the Olympics or get 1M followers, but you’ll be pleasantly surprised what’s possible when you follow a plan and do a few runs/posts per week!

“Do or do not. There is no try.” -Yoda

What’s stopped you from posting more? And if you’ve built a personal brand, what worked?

Send this to the founder with 200 LinkedIn drafts and zero published posts! 😜

P.S. Want more on this? Check out Why Personal Branding Matters, For You and Your Company.