How do you see the cult of multiple founders? (who, however, leave their businesses abandoned)
Over the past month, I've been scrolling through several LinkedIn profiles and noticed how some people have long portfolios of businesses that say:
– Founder
– Founder
– Founder
– ... (but they've been at each thing for maybe half a year and are already starting something new)
How does that affect you?
I think it's great to have a strategy for shipping things quickly; "you only miss those shots you won't take," but doesn't it seem bad that a person doesn't know how to properly scale at least one thing?
Because when I see this repeated 6-10 times without results, it also has some telling value.
What do you think about this? Is it appropriate to put it on your LinkedIn profiles at all?
Since I have been spending 6 months pretty actively on LinkedIn, I am trying to understand how to polish the profile as best as possible.
Replies
I mostly see a difference between experimentation and avoidance.
Early on, trying multiple things quickly is healthy. But when “Founder” repeats 6–10 times with no visible outcomes, it signals a lack of follow-through and comfort with the hard scaling phase.
For me, it reduces credibility around execution depth.
On LinkedIn, listing every short-lived venture usually hurts more than it helps. It’s better to highlight fewer projects, focus on outcomes, or group experiments together.
In short: shipping fast is good — sticking with one long enough to scale is what builds trust.
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@alpertayfurr Maybe it depends on the platform where you present yourself. X community doesn't take it so dramatically. LinkedIn yes.
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@atique_bandukwala1 But this mindset better fits on X, on LinkedIn – I am not so sure.
I’m very much in the “almost nothing is black and white” camp here. Yes – sometimes you do know the background story and you can clearly see a pattern of shallow commitment. In those cases, multiple short-lived “Founder” titles can be a real signal.
But very often, we simply don’t see what’s happening behind closed doors.
Just today we were discussing a tool at the office and someone questioned why the team behind it made certain “odd” decisions. My reaction was: it might look dumb from the outside, but none of us knows the constraints, trade-offs, or realities inside their four walls. There’s almost always a reason – even if it’s not visible on a LinkedIn profile.
Of course, it is stronger when a founder can point to at least one journey taken through the unsexy middle – building, fixing, scaling, or even shutting something down thoughtfully. That builds trust.
In our own case, we’re now founding a second company. One is a nearly 10-year-old business, the other is a newborn. 🐣 That’s very different from being a “new founder” every six months, but from the outside, both still show up as “Founder”.
So for me, sometimes it really comes back to what @atique_bandukwala1 said: it’s not about counting titles, but understanding the story, the intent, and the outcomes behind them. And those rarely fit neatly into a headline.
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@atique_bandukwala1 @tereza_hurtova Wow! 10 years is an age. When someone is a multiple founder but can be "present" in the business, it hits differently than quitting after 4months. Such a difference in a profile changes the perspective. Because everybody knows that...
Nothing worth having comes easy.
@busmark_w_nika Spot on, Nika! The difference between a 4-month stint and a 10-year journey is exactly where the trust is built. It’s all about the grit in the 'unsexy middle'. :)
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@tereza_hurtova We are hard workers :D
vibecoder.date
As a personal rule I avoid linked in as much as humanly possible. Perhaps it is because I have never invested the time to optimize my feed and every company I've aver applied to had an autofollow for their newsletter.
In that platform ephemeral virality and event based engagement dominate. The only people that look at your background are recruiters and only if you are applying or your skills are in demand.
The constant stream of information drowns out any reputational harm that may come from that series of launches with no scale.
When you get to a certain level of followers, it's a number game and to my perception the algorithm favors this behavior for startups and entrepreneurship.
It may be different for open source, academia, or enterprise-career minded folks.
If linked in is a marketing channel primarily then I understand when people use the algorithm to their advantage.
Frankly if they wanted to appear consistent they should just list themselves as owners of a holding company which may be an umbrella for their multiple ventures.
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@build_with_aj I just started thinking about it because LinkedIn started evolving into a content platform + Founders of big companies started with content too (of course, probably someone else is in charge of), but it feels like the success is determined by not only the number of "founded companies", but scaling at least one of them.
IXORD
It may be considered a negative sign because a person might not be spending their time consistently on a single product. After a setback one needs to move forward and improve the product. I often notice that consistency reflects well on you as a professional. What do you think about this?
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@ixord But isn't it a bad energy/attention distribution related to a lack of strategic decision-making?
IXORD
@busmark_w_nika Sorry, in my last message, I said "consistency," I meant "stability." Yes, you are right that consistency can distract attention from less important matters :)
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@ixord It makes more sense now :D