Are you trying to build a personal brand or a company brand first?
At the beginning of the year, 2 co-founders reached out to me because they wanted to scale their personal LinkedIn profiles. The reason: In a few months, they’re planning to raise funding and believe their personal brand could help.
A few days ago, another founder contacted me with a similar intention, although he’s not planning to raise funding. For him, LinkedIn has become the platform that generates the most leads. He doesn’t particularly enjoy the network itself, but he still wants to keep building it.
At the same time, I see large companies like Lovable, Replit, and HubSpot investing more in the personal brands of their employees rather than focusing purely on the company brand.
And I understand why – people listen to people.
A company brand often becomes just an identifier for products.
Have you already started investing more in personal brands as founders, and in the personal brands of your employees? :) Love to hear your observations and takes.
Replies
Personally? I am just trying to do both I guess, I am trying to use my product to survive, but also to try to inspire people to stay on the straight and narrow, to stay focussed and to not give up... not that I am a super success story, especially financially, but from living under a bridge, shooting heroin in a public toilet 5 years ago... to now being an Apple and Google deployed App developer is kind of cool.... lol... if I do say so myself:)
minimalist phone: creating folders
@michael_kalaf How did you become a developer?
A chicken and egg problem :) In my opinion, you need an established company brand backing you if you want to build your personal brand. Otherwise you'll likely be labeled as an untrustworthy source on platforms like LinkedIn and won't reach a large audience. But to build trust in a brand you also need a trustworthy face. So it's a classic chicken and egg problem - with a tendency to prioritize the company brand.
minimalist phone: creating folders
@jan_christiansen I think that influencers are the bset example – they scale their personal profile and then launch the product. But as soon as you damage your personal reputation, any of your product replicate that behaviour.
In my opinion, I've found it's much harder to grow a personal brand - especially for influencers if an individual is not considered in the social media space to be "conventionally attractive". I've found as a builder, it's much simpler to build a personal brand after establishing credibility by building tools that people use first, then people naturally ask who's the founder? Or maybe I've come to terms I'm not conventionally attractive 😂
minimalist phone: creating folders
@minhajulll :DDD I think that people don't have to be literally attractive. To do something interesting or unusual is enough :D
I always advise founders to start with their personal brand. People connect with people, and social media algorithms tend to push personal profiles - on LinkedIn, for example, personal profiles get at least x5 more exposure than company profiles.
Companies that successfully implement employee advocacy programs, convincing people to create exposure for the company from their personal profiles, already have a competitive advantage.
minimalist phone: creating folders
@ruxandra_mazilu Do you have any article for this? "on LinkedIn, for example, personal profiles get at least x5 more exposure than company profiles."
@busmark_w_nika Many companies/agencies tested this and posted their results. This one from Refine Labs came in handy: https://www.refinelabs.com/article/personal-linkedin-engagement-vs-company-page
I also did this experiment with 3 clients I freelance for (b2b and b2c tech), and my results were around x5 (and even x6 for one of them).
minimalist phone: creating folders
@ruxandra_mazilu It seems that the decision to invest more into my personal profile/brand is paying off :)
@busmark_w_nika for sure! Really like what you're doing on LinkedIn, keep it up! I need to get my posting game up again, been quite off lately haha
I think it depends on stage.
Pre-product-market fit → personal brand builds trust and distribution.
Post-PMF → company brand compounds credibility.
As a founder building a B2B infra product, I’ve found that technical credibility and thought leadership drive more meaningful conversations than logo visibility early on.
minimalist phone: creating folders
@pashupathi Also, do you build a brand on LinkedIn? If so, what are you focusing on? Personal page or company page?
@busmark_w_nika Right now mostly personal page.
Since I’m building in the AI infra space, I think early trust comes more from sharing thinking, learnings, and technical insights rather than pushing a company logo.
The company brand will matter more once distribution and proof points exist, but at this stage, I’m focusing on credibility and conversations.
minimalist phone: creating folders
@pashupathi This is also what my clients did: Personal over the company. But they wanna raise funds. Do you have similar ambition?
@busmark_w_nika Potentially in the future, yes, but I’m not building the personal brand primarily for fundraising.
For me, especially in the AI infrastructure space, trust and credibility matter more than visibility early on. I’d rather be known for thoughtful insights and real problem-solving than for announcing big ambitions too early.
If we eventually decide to raise, having that foundation and network will definitely help, but right now the focus is product depth and meaningful usage.
people do connect way more with humans than faceless company logos, and it's smart that founders are leaning into personal brands now. Sometimes though, it feels a bit forced tbh
minimalist phone: creating folders
@viktorgems Do you know any good profiles that are really good at personal branding? (LI specifically)
@busmark_w_nika hmmm, not that many, at least not on top of my head, the first one that came to my mind is Tak Lo (same on linkedin). The majority feel like spamming and to be honest, after seeing sort of the same message on a daily or weekly basis, becomes less interesting to follow
minimalist phone: creating folders
@viktorgems It is enough, I am gonna check him but it is possible that I already follow him.
Termsy
Over the last few years, I've seen that building a personal brand account on any platform has been much easier than growing a company brand account.
But for things to really take off, you need to post very consistently (multiple times a day?).
Which makes this a full time job to be honest.
I wish this was easier, but then everyone would be able to do it then 🤷♂️
minimalist phone: creating folders
@arungopidas That's for sure, but once you hit a viral post, you are more likely to crack more viral posts after that. Yesterday wrote about that: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nika-kotlarikova_i-noticed-one-pattern-among-people-who-grew-activity-7432022726820696066-r6Q4
vibecoder.date
Neither.
A professional/business brand that isn't full on company.
I value my privacy for reasons that I have hinted at before.
I do not wish to expose my likeness, voice, mannerisms, to an internet swarming with bad actors.
And I do not wish to establish a corporate brand either.
Ideally, I'd like for it to be, ah yes, Person from Business who does XYZ.
minimalist phone: creating folders
@build_with_aj I realised how difficult it has to be for you build a personal brand, because so many media, platforms etc. require your (almost whole) life information, data, behavioural patterns. If you wanna be anonymous, it is 10000x more difficult for you to build one. 🫣
vibecoder.date
@busmark_w_nika At this point it's hard to tell what's paranoia, what's hedging against discrimination, and what's legitimate opsec.
I'm glad you understand. Anonymity from everyone is borderline impossible, but one can do a reasonably good job of avoiding most people snooping, even dedicated trolls give up with sufficient countermeasures.
In my situation I'd rather a personal brand, when friends ask me about what I do to make a living I can barely explain it to myself, so I prefer to be me and keep my projects at other level.
minimalist phone: creating folders
@agraciag but what would you talk about when building a personal brand? Something non-work related? :)
@busmark_w_nika Oh, it can be work, but depending who I am talking to I would go one way or another, I am a Technical Architect (the one that builds houses), but since 2008 I've been working also as a developer and also changed country of residence to install digital signage LED screens, job that mixed my architectural side with the technological one... so for many people when I talk about my projects they just get confused about what I do, I try to select what I explain in each case.
Tomosu
As a solo developer, I'm doing both simultaneously. I'm building Tomosu (an iOS app for digital wellbeing), and my personal brand as the founder is inseparable from it. People trust the person before the product — especially in the wellness space. What I've found: sharing my personal story of why I built it resonates far more than any feature announcement.
minimalist phone: creating folders
@nakajima_ryoma Where are you most present? I would say that for attention etc, the best are IG and X :)