Lance Davis

I formally studied marketing as a university program (5 years), and due to inspiration on social networks, it feels completely natural to do it, even easy to learn (because most of the time you just guess what might work for you).

BUT

1. 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.

2. 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.

Update: The Deel Leaderboard will no longer be going ahead today for the Paris event.

We re teaming up with The Pitch by @Deel, a global startup competition where up to 100 winners will receive $50k in funding and up to 10 winners will receive $1M+.