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
Company brand first, but only because it forces clarity.
When you build a personal brand, you can get away with being vague — people follow you for vibes. A company brand has to answer: what problem do you solve, for who, and why you? That discipline pays off in everything from your landing page copy to your pitch deck.
With Hello Aria, we lead with the product brand. But the founder story (why we built it, what problem we lived ourselves) is what converts browsers into believers. The personal brand is woven in — it's just not the front door.
Long term, the company brand outlives the founders. That's what you're really building.