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
I've seen founders get false positives from their audience, people praise the product bcz they like the person, not bcz it's actually good.
@paige_lauren1 That's actually a real head-scratcher. I do believe that also depends on the authenticity of the personal brand, and how they've nurtured their audience. If they raise an audience that's as authentic as they are, they'll be able to have that conversation that's feedback oriented and want it to grow just as much.
@dayal_punjabi True, authenticity helps, but it doesn't fully remove the bias loop.
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@paige_lauren1 yeah, that is the downside I pointed out, so sometimes I understand why some people maintain anonymity.
@busmark_w_nika Yeah, anonymity avoids bias but then you lose trust + reach, it's a trade off either way.
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@paige_lauren1 It is that longer journey :)
@paige_lauren1 agree 100%. I don't understand why some apps with massive security issues and lacking features get so much promotion. Damn Twitch/YouTube I need to learn how to not be scared in front of a camera.
@paige_lauren1 @gcampton yeah that's my biggest hesitation too :D
@paige_lauren1 That's why we do a Mom test. It's a good book I recommend to everyone. Asking the right questions is a skill in itself.
@yash_shukla2 100%. It's far too easy to fall into the trap of asking leading questions. Good book. Good rec.
My!hū
@paige_lauren1 I totally agree. I learned that the hard way, after investing months of hard work on a product I thought my audience had "approved". Authenticity is really a very rare trait in an age where everyone is seeking validation and a positive online footprint.
The "can't hand over personal accounts" problem is very real. Most people only realize it when they try to sell.
@jack_sullivan5 And it becomes too late as in everything has to be reorganised.
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@jack_sullivan5 Thankfully, I had a YouTube interview with one founder a few years ago, so I am aware of this :D
@jack_sullivan5 @busmark_w_nika what platforms will let me create an account with the brand and not my personal account? My product has an account on X. I have been writing on both Medium and LinkedIn using my name. How can I best market an open source, startup SASS?
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@jack_sullivan5 @dstr88 I noticed that many people started using UGC creators for that to be seen as more authentic. But to be honest, I need to observe it.
@jack_sullivan5 Exactly this! It’s a huge bottleneck for scaling too; if the brand relies entirely on the founder's face, passing off operations to a marketing team or planning an exit strategy becomes a nightmare.
Product first gives a cleaner signal, brand first gives faster distribution. The risk is choosing speed over truth.
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@reid_anderson3 invest in both and you have marketing + product on steroids (when it is done correctly) :)
@reid_anderson3 Spot on Reid. Choosing speed over truth is the biggest risk of brand first distribution. As I'm building on my own tool, I find that a cleaner signal (product first) is harder to get but much more reliable for long term PMF. How do you decide when the signal is strong enough to start scaling the brand?
@reid_anderson3 This resonates deeply. For B2B retail specifically, I've found that the signal from product-first is cleaner but slower — store owners want to see the product working before they'll even take a call. But without the founder brand, you can't get in the door to show them. The two aren't sequential, they're parallel tracks that reinforce each other.
@reid_anderson3 agree with you, The product is key, but without marketing, even the best product will be forgotten
Feels like the real answer isn't brans vs product, it's timing, too much brand early can distort feedback, too little means no one notices you.
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@oliver_nathan2 @trevor_nicholas1 has probably the same opinion on that :)
@busmark_w_nika Yeah, It's really a timing thing.
The hybrid approach seems safest. Build quietly, then share once there is something real to react to.
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@ian_maxwell1 or do it simultaneously :) People live authenticity and sharing in real time, because it feels more current to them!
The real question might be: do you want users to trust you first or what you built first?
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@ian_maxwell2 Can't I choose something between? (equal) 😭
@busmark_w_nika I wish it worked as "both equally" but in reality, one usually leads first.
Either people trust you and forgive the early product, or they trust the product and judge you more directly.
The real change is just making sure the one leading does not completely distort the other.
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@ian_maxwell2 In that case, I need to rely only on myself :D I am new in coding and building products from scratch :D
@ian_maxwell2 For enterprise B2B the answer is almost always you first. A retail store owner signing a contract doesn't trust SaaS — they trust the person who showed up, understood their problem, and stood behind the solution. The product just has to not embarrass the trust you've already built.
Strong personal brands can unintentionally bias feedback loops, which is dangerous in early product stages.
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@trevor_nicholas1 so the suggestion is to keep it some time separate and then announce that you stood behind the product?
Visla
It truly depends on what you're trying to build, "personal brand" is overrated when it comes to business and technology. Not unimportant, but overrated. You build a brand, great, but your business sucks, or the tech is useless. Your brand just became useless.
The truth is that the brand won't matter if you don't have substance behind it. You will still need to be more than just a brand name.
SBF got as far as he did until the checks started to bounce. Theranos, and Elizabeth Holmes were a good brand, until it wasn't. Charlie Javice, and Frank were a great brand name for a while, until the JPM acquisition, and debacle. Heck we can go back to the DeLorean car in the 80s, John DeLorean was the brand, he was the company, Back to the Future made it seem like it was a great idea...but the reality was something completely different.
When you build your business, you are essentially building your brand.
Now if you are an influencer, or a pure marketer, then the rules are different. You are the brand, you are the business, go all in and build that brand.
@mogabr Makes sense, feels like brand without substance just accelerates the fall but the opposite problem exists too. Great products that never get attention because no one’s telling the story. Especially now, distribution is almost part of the product. The real challenge seems to be making both evolve together without one masking the other. How are you thinking about this at an early stage?
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@mogabr @kabirsalunkhe That's a good point and partially why I asked. Because now, everybody is a developer with AI, and we can make as many products as possible, and the real differentiator is becoming distribution and personal brand.
@mogabr @kabirsalunkhe @busmark_w_nika sometimes i feel a hybrid approach makes more sense. I would start building the product, then slowly share the journey once there is something concrete to show.
@mogabr @kabirsalunkhe @busmark_w_nika @deangelo_hinkle I am curious how people separate identity from product in the long run 🤔 especially if the brand grows around the founder’s personality.
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@mogabr Yes, but the thing is that when I am a marketer, I will be (most of the time) dependent on selling my time traded on social media (being consistent, engaging more to feed the algorithm, etc.). I think it is a good asset to have when I launch my product later, but I need to be very cautious about the quality of the product, not to harm my personal brand.
I used to think product was everything but seeing how community driven launches succeed on PH changed my mind. A personal brand acts like a trust layer before the user even clicks the landing page. It's definitely harder but the conversion floor is much higher.
@emre_yilmaz_easyparser Really interesting angle.
Feels like this is moving search from “retrieval” to “interpretation.”
The hard part will be making sure better UX doesn’t come at the cost of weaker signal quality , curious how you're thinking about that tradeoff.
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@emre_yilmaz_easyparser Now more and more people (founders) invest in their personal brand than in theri product page (esp. on LI) :)
@emre_yilmaz_easyparser @busmark_w_nika you are right. In this era, distribution is the king and it starts with your personal branding. However, as you mentioned, sharing your personal keys, from the account where you built your whole empire, creates real security concerns over time.
@emre_yilmaz_easyparser Exactly this — especially in B2B where the buyer is trusting you as much as the product. In retail tech, store owners aren't buying software, they're buying a relationship with someone who understands their store. The personal brand isn't vanity, it's the first sales call you never had to take.
The founders who scale fastest aren't always the ones with the best product, they're the ones who made it easiest for someone else to explain what they do. If your pitch only lands when you're in the room delivering it, you've built a founder-dependent business, not a brand.
The real test is whether a happy customer can sell it for you in one sentence without you coaching them.
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@verticomply They are just good storytellers (marketers) :)