Andrea Lisbona just sold Touchland for 700MM with *no* personal brand. Do you have to be a lifestyle influencer to be a successful consumer CEO? Let's find out.
i guess for bootstrapped founders, building in public/ posting yourself on the brand account is the most affordable way to get your first customers and that early traction. once you've gained some momentum there's no need for you to be as front and centre but it does feel pretty unavoidable in that first phase - but would be v interested to hear alternative povs
totally agree - it’s the most cost effective way of building awareness and community and really showcasing what the brand stands for and who it’s for. I also think - and i didn’t go into this in the piece - that the barrier to entry is so much lower now for this type of thing versus when the two exited founders i mentioned started their respective brands. for those two founders ~10-15 years ago it would’ve been a lot of effort and GLOSSINESS on IG and youtube and blogging (??) bc of the aesthetic expectations back then versus now, casual and easier to execute stuff on tik tok + IG + substack
yeah definitely - I get it that it’s not ideal that founders are under so much pressure to run the biz + be a creator but at the same time the potential upside is huge. Theoretically it means anyone has a shot at getting traction if they’re good at content (rather than wealthy or networked) but at the same time it does create a bias towards “marketable” founders
you just need a beautiful blonde orthorexic influencer to be the face of your company while a brunette workaholic is drinking at her desk/running the company, it’s easy
I think whether you are a male or female founder, brands community want to see & hear from founders and fur them to be involved. But not every founder has both a business & a creative brain, so those who combine both hit à jackpot. Also customers are spoilt by choice & the market is oversaturated, so loyalty & growth are hard to come by. Touch land sale at that price is surprising, but then the valuations of a lot of brands are astronomically overblown. What is also a fact is that it’s much, much harder for female brand founders to fundraise vs their male counterparts
something you’ve brought up here that’s totally worth digging into is how much harder it is for women to raise capital compared to their male counterparts, and yes, what I at least see happening is consumer investors really demanding a massive and obsessed customer community. so how do you forge that as a female founder with little capital? YOU become the/a big reason people support the brand/business. in order to show investors what they want to even be eligible for a check, you become forward facing so you can build the community and check that box!
this subject is not new and I have highlighted it in my past posts, one of the examples being Sarah Creal. She has worked for many brands and was responsible for creating many cult products, yet when she was fundraising for her own brand she ended up putting her own money and that of her business co-founder, as investors were dismissive of the need of brands catering for women 40 or 50+. Obsessed customer community might be here today, but moves on to another hyped brand quickly, but brand founders do sometimes become cult leaders in business. Bobbi Brown is a fine example of that. The somewhat opposite example is someone that average beauty consumer doesn't know, founder of Manasi7 Susanne Manasi Persson. She has always crafted incredible products, with her husband being responsible for artistic direction and even though the brand is not new, only now it is gaining wider recognition -it is one of finalists in BoF second cohort of Global Beauty Awards - and Susanne is 'allergic' to putting herself ion the spotlight
I definitely feel more relieved after reading this. Yes I am choosing to “build in public” on my substack because I want to help increase transparency around what it takes to start a business, but I have also been playing around with making short form video content and, to be honest, I hate it. I am super introverted, uncomfortable in front of the camera, and most of the time my apartment is messy and I am not “done up” in the way that the internet is used to seeing content creators be. The whole process adds stress to my day, and the whole point of my brand is to help people remove stress and simplify, so it feels counterintuitive. I feel like this post gave me permission to not try to be an “influencer” on top of everything else hah
Thank you for reading and sharing! I’m glad this gave you permission to build in a way that feels more aligned for you. I also think in general if a growth or marketing tactic feels super inauthentic or exhausting, it’s not sustainable anyway! So focusing on your substack if that feels more enriching for you is the way to go!!!
Really appreciate the thoroughness of this.. the conundrum between building in public vs staying behind the scenes is like another version of “can women have it all”. I think from an investing perspective, a public facing founder posting on social media is a very slippery slope and can do a lot more harm than good (ex the drama with the youthphoria founder). It signals a lot more risk and I think the benefits of it can quickly outharm the good… and from a consumer perspective, i think a founder becoming too influencer-y can start to discredit their product quality in a way if it starts to feel like they’re just shilling. all in all it’s an interesting voyeuristic strategy and i understand why the content is engaging, but def more accretive to personal brand rather than the company which do not necessarily go hand in hand
i love this take and think it makes total sense. it’s almost like there’s this invisible, fine line where the influencing becomes more self-serving than brand-serving and the consumer can start to smell it. also the youthforia example is a strong one. when the founder and brand become too intertwined it leaves little wiggle room for the brand to make mistakes and course correct because the consumer has a literal person to attack/blame/go after and the offense feels so much more personal. also loved how you tied it back to the “women can have it all” trope.
larry truther?? also this is so good. the quotes make me feel like i’m watching satc season one. it reminds me of brooke erin duffy’s research in aspirational labor, and like the idea that we all end up in jobs that require us to service others whether it’s smiling and/or sending polite emails (or posting a pretty video). the instinct to perform / fawn / display femininity in crisis is definitelyyyy girlcoded
"all end up in jobs that require us to service others whether it’s smiling and/or sending polite emails (or posting a pretty video)" -- I am constantly asking myself why, even if it's for a larger aim like growing my audience so I can sell my upcoming fiction book, or to test stuff out on social platforms so I can become sharper and smarter for my clients (a bit like: if I'm running social strategy I should know the formula for a viral video, right??), I always feel like h*ly f*cking sh*t I feel like a pawn. I just bought Duffy's 2017 book bc of your comment so thank you so much for sharing.
of course!! you’ll enjoy it - it’s very fashion blogger era but captures the same limitations and sentiments we see now. i also am always struggling with seeing the fabric/texture of it and being like ok…well what else can i really do? fail? not try? starve? it’s a weird place to be but the tension also makes it a fun place to study (i would never want to learn marketing strategy stuff from someone who didn’t see and acknowledge the bullshit lol)
I love where you took this and am honored to contribute. I've been thinking a lot about female founders and the "performance of ambition," a concept Emily Sundberg recently wrote about.
I understand why the female founder aesthetic is so popular, but much of this content (like most things on social media) is performance and over-glamourized. Pretty photos on IG stories will never show you the most challenging moments of running a startup: the conversations that led to layoffs, what happens when you're running out of cash, tough conversations with investors, etc.
I fear these founders often portray a version of "work" that's not real, and it's setting wonky expectations for women who aspire to start their own business one day.
absolutely loved Emily's recent piece on this. Her piece also made me think about how much TIME it takes to cultivate that performance/aesthetic and whether people are doing it for/with them or if it's taking up their time? Either way, it's in the air.
I love that you brought this layer up, I didn't even cover it. I talk a lot about it in my first book - it was a massive factor in why I wrote the book in the first place, I felt so alienated by all the glamorized content and felt like no one was giving a real bts of what it was like to build a business from zero and do all the messy stuff - but I think with tik tok, the proliferation of the founder/influencer, etc, it's only gotten worse.
Wow wow wow what a deep dive! My favorite read this week. This topic is so incredibly nuanced and I could chat about it for hours.
Just the other day I did an experiment and started manually counting how many Instagram stories my favorite founders have up per day. I picked five people in different spaces — four were women, one was a man. All four women had anywhere from 3-17 stories up per day, where the man didn’t post a thing. He is a bit older, has already built his brand up to a certain point, and doesn’t need to “make noise” anymore. All of the women are still building.
As a consumer and aspiring founder, BTS content is by far my favorite style of content to consume. I look at these founders and assume that to have a similar level of success I need to pull back my curtain a bit too, at least in the early days. For me, build stage = BTS should exist if a founder is comfy with it (show your work, engage with audience, etc.) to move the needle further when it comes to brand awareness and engagement. But being a business content creator/influencer shouldn’t become their whole personality. I think the best founders are hovering the line where I can’t tell if they’re trying to also be an influencer or not.
Once again - nuance all over - but I think this is one strong competitive edge female founders have over male founders in the age of digital consumerism. Consumers do care about this content, so if founders are up for it - take advantage and post! If they don’t want to or aren’t comfy with it, also not a dealbreaker by any means! Whatever protects the peace to enable more momentum to build.
i love this response and thank you for engaging with the piece - glad you loved it. Your final point, “whatever protects your peace to enable more momentum to build,” is exactly what i wanted to share as my key takeaway, too. you’re so right in that IF posting to social is considered “feminine” then it’s 100% a competitive edge for women and where we have so many, we should take advantage of it!!! amazing POV. TY for reading 🖤
thank you for chatting with me and for sharing so many angles I legit had not thought of while putting this together. Truly meant what I said when I described you as “measured” - you’re a very rational thinker and I appreciate how clearly you communicate
I personally think most founders don’t need to build in public or be super out there. While it helps it can drag a business down potentially. Depends how it’s taken on. It can lead to founders building a personal brand more than they build their brand. Not that it’s bad but can make growing the business harder
Again, nothing wrong with building in public. I do it, many friends do, but it can get away from you too easily
this reminds me of some video or article or somethingggg I saw that went viral either last year or year prior where an investor was talking about how insane it is to watch founders focus more on their personal brand-building than on operating. That was a whole layer I didn't even explore here - are there cases where the business is the trojan horse to just having a Personal Brand + being an affiliate and getting other brand deals basically? or maybe the personal brand building offers more immediate results + immediate gratification some some personality types end up gravitating more toward that work than the operating?
i agree it's so case by case. but im def leaning more now toward not NEEDING to build in public to have a successful company, and I hope a lot of the stressed women reading this end up with the same conclusion!!! Ty always Nate <3
Super interesting - tbh, my jaw dropped learning touchland had been around 15 years. 👀 I think there is something interesting there, too. I truly didn’t know of them till the pandemic. I assume a lot of people think they’re only a few years old.
One person I keep thinking about is Meg the founder of Dorsey. I feel like she was so quiet BTS but then people started asking her like what do you wear, eat, shop, etc. It would be interesting to explore some other founders and drill down into what came first: people asking for them to be more in the spotlight or if they felt the need to step into it.
i guess for bootstrapped founders, building in public/ posting yourself on the brand account is the most affordable way to get your first customers and that early traction. once you've gained some momentum there's no need for you to be as front and centre but it does feel pretty unavoidable in that first phase - but would be v interested to hear alternative povs
totally agree - it’s the most cost effective way of building awareness and community and really showcasing what the brand stands for and who it’s for. I also think - and i didn’t go into this in the piece - that the barrier to entry is so much lower now for this type of thing versus when the two exited founders i mentioned started their respective brands. for those two founders ~10-15 years ago it would’ve been a lot of effort and GLOSSINESS on IG and youtube and blogging (??) bc of the aesthetic expectations back then versus now, casual and easier to execute stuff on tik tok + IG + substack
yeah definitely - I get it that it’s not ideal that founders are under so much pressure to run the biz + be a creator but at the same time the potential upside is huge. Theoretically it means anyone has a shot at getting traction if they’re good at content (rather than wealthy or networked) but at the same time it does create a bias towards “marketable” founders
you just need a beautiful blonde orthorexic influencer to be the face of your company while a brunette workaholic is drinking at her desk/running the company, it’s easy
i feel like i read a book about this somewhere?????
in all seriousness this was a great post
lmao way to call us brunette workaholic (former) founders out 😂
I think whether you are a male or female founder, brands community want to see & hear from founders and fur them to be involved. But not every founder has both a business & a creative brain, so those who combine both hit à jackpot. Also customers are spoilt by choice & the market is oversaturated, so loyalty & growth are hard to come by. Touch land sale at that price is surprising, but then the valuations of a lot of brands are astronomically overblown. What is also a fact is that it’s much, much harder for female brand founders to fundraise vs their male counterparts
something you’ve brought up here that’s totally worth digging into is how much harder it is for women to raise capital compared to their male counterparts, and yes, what I at least see happening is consumer investors really demanding a massive and obsessed customer community. so how do you forge that as a female founder with little capital? YOU become the/a big reason people support the brand/business. in order to show investors what they want to even be eligible for a check, you become forward facing so you can build the community and check that box!
this subject is not new and I have highlighted it in my past posts, one of the examples being Sarah Creal. She has worked for many brands and was responsible for creating many cult products, yet when she was fundraising for her own brand she ended up putting her own money and that of her business co-founder, as investors were dismissive of the need of brands catering for women 40 or 50+. Obsessed customer community might be here today, but moves on to another hyped brand quickly, but brand founders do sometimes become cult leaders in business. Bobbi Brown is a fine example of that. The somewhat opposite example is someone that average beauty consumer doesn't know, founder of Manasi7 Susanne Manasi Persson. She has always crafted incredible products, with her husband being responsible for artistic direction and even though the brand is not new, only now it is gaining wider recognition -it is one of finalists in BoF second cohort of Global Beauty Awards - and Susanne is 'allergic' to putting herself ion the spotlight
I definitely feel more relieved after reading this. Yes I am choosing to “build in public” on my substack because I want to help increase transparency around what it takes to start a business, but I have also been playing around with making short form video content and, to be honest, I hate it. I am super introverted, uncomfortable in front of the camera, and most of the time my apartment is messy and I am not “done up” in the way that the internet is used to seeing content creators be. The whole process adds stress to my day, and the whole point of my brand is to help people remove stress and simplify, so it feels counterintuitive. I feel like this post gave me permission to not try to be an “influencer” on top of everything else hah
Thank you for reading and sharing! I’m glad this gave you permission to build in a way that feels more aligned for you. I also think in general if a growth or marketing tactic feels super inauthentic or exhausting, it’s not sustainable anyway! So focusing on your substack if that feels more enriching for you is the way to go!!!
Really appreciate the thoroughness of this.. the conundrum between building in public vs staying behind the scenes is like another version of “can women have it all”. I think from an investing perspective, a public facing founder posting on social media is a very slippery slope and can do a lot more harm than good (ex the drama with the youthphoria founder). It signals a lot more risk and I think the benefits of it can quickly outharm the good… and from a consumer perspective, i think a founder becoming too influencer-y can start to discredit their product quality in a way if it starts to feel like they’re just shilling. all in all it’s an interesting voyeuristic strategy and i understand why the content is engaging, but def more accretive to personal brand rather than the company which do not necessarily go hand in hand
i love this take and think it makes total sense. it’s almost like there’s this invisible, fine line where the influencing becomes more self-serving than brand-serving and the consumer can start to smell it. also the youthforia example is a strong one. when the founder and brand become too intertwined it leaves little wiggle room for the brand to make mistakes and course correct because the consumer has a literal person to attack/blame/go after and the offense feels so much more personal. also loved how you tied it back to the “women can have it all” trope.
larry truther?? also this is so good. the quotes make me feel like i’m watching satc season one. it reminds me of brooke erin duffy’s research in aspirational labor, and like the idea that we all end up in jobs that require us to service others whether it’s smiling and/or sending polite emails (or posting a pretty video). the instinct to perform / fawn / display femininity in crisis is definitelyyyy girlcoded
"all end up in jobs that require us to service others whether it’s smiling and/or sending polite emails (or posting a pretty video)" -- I am constantly asking myself why, even if it's for a larger aim like growing my audience so I can sell my upcoming fiction book, or to test stuff out on social platforms so I can become sharper and smarter for my clients (a bit like: if I'm running social strategy I should know the formula for a viral video, right??), I always feel like h*ly f*cking sh*t I feel like a pawn. I just bought Duffy's 2017 book bc of your comment so thank you so much for sharing.
of course!! you’ll enjoy it - it’s very fashion blogger era but captures the same limitations and sentiments we see now. i also am always struggling with seeing the fabric/texture of it and being like ok…well what else can i really do? fail? not try? starve? it’s a weird place to be but the tension also makes it a fun place to study (i would never want to learn marketing strategy stuff from someone who didn’t see and acknowledge the bullshit lol)
I love where you took this and am honored to contribute. I've been thinking a lot about female founders and the "performance of ambition," a concept Emily Sundberg recently wrote about.
I understand why the female founder aesthetic is so popular, but much of this content (like most things on social media) is performance and over-glamourized. Pretty photos on IG stories will never show you the most challenging moments of running a startup: the conversations that led to layoffs, what happens when you're running out of cash, tough conversations with investors, etc.
I fear these founders often portray a version of "work" that's not real, and it's setting wonky expectations for women who aspire to start their own business one day.
absolutely loved Emily's recent piece on this. Her piece also made me think about how much TIME it takes to cultivate that performance/aesthetic and whether people are doing it for/with them or if it's taking up their time? Either way, it's in the air.
I love that you brought this layer up, I didn't even cover it. I talk a lot about it in my first book - it was a massive factor in why I wrote the book in the first place, I felt so alienated by all the glamorized content and felt like no one was giving a real bts of what it was like to build a business from zero and do all the messy stuff - but I think with tik tok, the proliferation of the founder/influencer, etc, it's only gotten worse.
Wow wow wow what a deep dive! My favorite read this week. This topic is so incredibly nuanced and I could chat about it for hours.
Just the other day I did an experiment and started manually counting how many Instagram stories my favorite founders have up per day. I picked five people in different spaces — four were women, one was a man. All four women had anywhere from 3-17 stories up per day, where the man didn’t post a thing. He is a bit older, has already built his brand up to a certain point, and doesn’t need to “make noise” anymore. All of the women are still building.
As a consumer and aspiring founder, BTS content is by far my favorite style of content to consume. I look at these founders and assume that to have a similar level of success I need to pull back my curtain a bit too, at least in the early days. For me, build stage = BTS should exist if a founder is comfy with it (show your work, engage with audience, etc.) to move the needle further when it comes to brand awareness and engagement. But being a business content creator/influencer shouldn’t become their whole personality. I think the best founders are hovering the line where I can’t tell if they’re trying to also be an influencer or not.
Once again - nuance all over - but I think this is one strong competitive edge female founders have over male founders in the age of digital consumerism. Consumers do care about this content, so if founders are up for it - take advantage and post! If they don’t want to or aren’t comfy with it, also not a dealbreaker by any means! Whatever protects the peace to enable more momentum to build.
i love this response and thank you for engaging with the piece - glad you loved it. Your final point, “whatever protects your peace to enable more momentum to build,” is exactly what i wanted to share as my key takeaway, too. you’re so right in that IF posting to social is considered “feminine” then it’s 100% a competitive edge for women and where we have so many, we should take advantage of it!!! amazing POV. TY for reading 🖤
such a timely conversation!
THANK YOU
This was like reading my internal narrative.
Here to be OF SERVICE
love this take
TY for reading - also so happy you got your bag charms!!!!
Super interesting breakdown!
thank you ZOYA!
Amazing piece. Thank you so much for including my take! Such an interesting and nuanced topic to ponder.
thank you for chatting with me and for sharing so many angles I legit had not thought of while putting this together. Truly meant what I said when I described you as “measured” - you’re a very rational thinker and I appreciate how clearly you communicate
🥰 aw – such an honor coming from you!!
I personally think most founders don’t need to build in public or be super out there. While it helps it can drag a business down potentially. Depends how it’s taken on. It can lead to founders building a personal brand more than they build their brand. Not that it’s bad but can make growing the business harder
Again, nothing wrong with building in public. I do it, many friends do, but it can get away from you too easily
this reminds me of some video or article or somethingggg I saw that went viral either last year or year prior where an investor was talking about how insane it is to watch founders focus more on their personal brand-building than on operating. That was a whole layer I didn't even explore here - are there cases where the business is the trojan horse to just having a Personal Brand + being an affiliate and getting other brand deals basically? or maybe the personal brand building offers more immediate results + immediate gratification some some personality types end up gravitating more toward that work than the operating?
i agree it's so case by case. but im def leaning more now toward not NEEDING to build in public to have a successful company, and I hope a lot of the stressed women reading this end up with the same conclusion!!! Ty always Nate <3
It’s all so nuanced, there’s levels to it all. It’s honestly such a fun conversation to have and figure out when and where and for who it works for!
Super interesting - tbh, my jaw dropped learning touchland had been around 15 years. 👀 I think there is something interesting there, too. I truly didn’t know of them till the pandemic. I assume a lot of people think they’re only a few years old.
One person I keep thinking about is Meg the founder of Dorsey. I feel like she was so quiet BTS but then people started asking her like what do you wear, eat, shop, etc. It would be interesting to explore some other founders and drill down into what came first: people asking for them to be more in the spotlight or if they felt the need to step into it.
Really great article!