Build your brand before your product, or launch first and reveal yourself later?
I've always been on the personal brand side. More and more founders are building it now (sometimes even before the product is ready – while it's still in development, before seed fundraising). The CEO builds their position so the product sells more easily at the official launch.
But I have experience with people who built the product, scaled it, and only then did we discover who was behind it.
Honestly, with the first approach, I'd be concerned that people invest more in me as a person than in the product. People would idealise the founder and overlook the product's flaws (which could hurt development and constructive feedback).
+ I noticed the most common mistake that many people who started building a personal brand first, connected their product to their personal accounts (emails, social media, etc.) and started having a problem selling these things, because they cannot "give someone keys" to their personal profiles.
Which opens the question:
Which approach brings more advantages in your opinion?
Replies
Build the brand first I would say, especially if you are cash strapped to start (like my company is). It helps gain a loyal following base which you can then use to encourage adoption once you launch.
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@milescward We belong to the same team! 😁
@milescward What are the most effective free or low-cost ways to build a brand audience before a product launch, specifically for a solo founder without time for community management or live chat engagement?
It's funny you bring it up because a lot of founders who do have established personal brands before a product forget that the personal brand is the journey and the product, well, it's the product. The product in my head has a bigger problem to solve. They can be 2 different ecosystems and co-exist. Also, the point of a personal brand is not to sell, it's to position. That differentiator matters. That alone must explain that your product must have a space of its own and not connect its entirety to the personal. Have its own domain, its own space, its own social media all from scratch. That's what gives space for both to simultaneously exist and grow.
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@dayal_punjabi Maybe a good thing. I was looking at these two separately, it should go hand in hand :)
I've done both across three apps. Built a faceless branded social presence on Instagram for two of them a meal planning app, hybrid training app had to keep it faceless because of work life balance conflicts (work for a gym and PT). Months of content creation, consistent posting, and it still barely moved the needle.
That burnout from pumping out content across platforms is actually what led me to build my latest product which I am happy to put my face behind but also got branding done.
For this one I went product-first. Shipped it, site is live, free tier open. Getting anyone to see it is a completely different problem. Reddit is hostile to anything that looks like marketing even after months of organic participation. Twitter automation gets zero engagement. Every channel assumes you already have an audience.
Honestly I don't think either approach worked well for me. Brand first burned me out creating content nobody saw. Product first left me with something that works and no way to show people. The answer is probably somewhere in the middle but I haven't found it yet.
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@splitpostio and haven't you seen in those 2 options that one of them was doing better?
@busmark_w_nika The hybrid training app on Instagram had 15 signups globally, consistent likes, people were saving posts. The meal planning app got nothing from the same strategy. So even brand-first was inconsistent across two app the hybrid training niche had a more engaged community on Instagram, the meal planning space is saturated.
I will use posthog to verify where users are being pulled from over the next few months until then I don't have enough data to say either way was better.
P.S. just realised you created the app I've been using for nearly a year.
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@splitpostio Do you mean minimalist phone? :D I am not a developer, just the marketing part.
Regarding the conversions – yeah, it would require a bigger sample to have some "general" conclusions.
I think the real risk isn’t choosing one over the other, but letting one dominate too much. If the brand grows faster than the product, you risk hype without substance. If the product grows without visibility, you risk slow adoption. The sweet spot feels like using a personal brand for distribution, while keeping the product independently scalable.
Curious how others separate the founder identity from the product long term.
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@jahnavi_thota That is my goal – to use both, but maybe my personal brand more.
@busmark_w_nika That’s fair. Personal brand can make things move faster in the beginning.
The interesting part is transitioning from founder-led growth to product-led growth over time.
@busmark_w_nika Launched first, then started showing up personally, and honestly the personal story drove more signups than the product page ever did. People buy into the problem you lived before they buy into the solution you built.
The "can't hand over the keys" point is real though. Keeping founder brand and product brand separate from day one saves a lot of pain later.
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@vishal7017 Maybe I should reconsider my approach, because what if my tool is sh!tty and I will present it from my personal account lol :D
@busmark_w_nika Exactly this. The personal story gets people through the door, the product keeps them inside. Learned that the hard way too.
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@vishal7017 But learned and that counts too! :)
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@founder92 I think it can work both ways, but with a personal brand, you can have an advantage with distribution :)
Feels like it’s not brand vs product but what you’re actually building trust in. If people follow you for opinions, they’ll show up early but they’ll also leave fast if the product doesn’t hold up. If they discover you through the product, trust builds slower but tends to stick longer. Been noticing this while building…the ideal seems somewhere in between
where the thinking attracts people and the product keeps them.
Have you seen cases where strong personal brands actually delayed honest product feedback?
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@kabirsalunkhe Not maybe delayed, but people falsely praised the product because they glorified the influencer. :D and I can see this pattern also in the politics (but this is not the direction I want to lead this convo) :D
@busmark_w_nika Interesting way to frame it. False positives might actually do more damage than delays. You think you’re getting validation but it’s not real signal and you start optimizing in the wrong direction. Especially early on when you’re still figuring out what matters. Strong personal brands can blur that line it’s not just about timing, it’s about the quality of feedback. Maybe the harder part is creating an environment where people feel okay being honest even if they like or respect the builder.
The personal account problem is underrated, seen founders realize too late that their product's entire audience lives on their personal LinkedIn or Twitter and there's no clean way to hand that off. Building on owned channels from day one saves a lot of headaches later.
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@farrukh_butt1 this is another thing and problem (but also a part of this discussion). My personal brand lives on PH and LinkedIn. I was banned several times on LinkedIn and was losing profits. Because my collaborations were there.
So I don't think it's about building a brand. I don't think the focus should be on the brand personally. I think the question should be about the problem you're solving. If you solve a problem that people are actually dying to solve, no one would really care about your personal brand as a person; they would care more about the business.
So this tool is helping me solve this problem. When they now find the person, they fall in love with the person. I don't think it should be either/or. I just feel like the main focus should not be on the person building the product, but on what you're really able to offer people with the product that you're building.
In essence, the founder's personal brand is not as imprtant as what the product delivers and how it delivers it. I do not know who is PH but I use it a lot. And so with other products.
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@janefrances_christopher Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve seen many influencers with large followings launch products that didn’t solve any meaningful problem. A good example is Naval, who launched AirChat (a new social media app built around using your voice and transcribing it into text messages).
People loved it, the first week was a sensation, and now nobody even remembers it. So yes, it’s about solving a problem, but I feel like many personal brands launch something (anything) that solves absolutely nothing, and it ends up flopping.
@busmark_w_nika Oh perfect example. Yes, it might go viral at first, but building a successful product is about making it last. What happens after launch (50 days and 1 year later) - that's what matters the most
I built first and would have benefit if I started building the brand earlier on. It feels like time wasted, especially when you are building in an experience you have no prior experience and you need to build a lot of trust.
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@norteapp at least, I am prepared now for building something and then only to push it through my personal brand :D
@busmark_w_nika You are in a great spot! You'll kill it.
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@norteapp hahaha, Thank you! :)