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 think starting with the brand is usually a great way to build trust and an audience early—but hey, what do I know! 🤷♂️
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@shivyadavus You need to try both ;)
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! :)
I think it depends on the stage.
When the product is still early, the founder story helps a lot because people don’t trust the product yet. They trust the person and the reason behind it.
But I agree with your point. If everything is connected to the founder personally, it can become messy later.
For me the balance is:
use the founder story to get attention and explain the problem, but don’t make the product fully dependent on the founder.
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@mohamed_glall I would really like to use the both to balance it (complement each other) :)
I think the dangerous part is when founders can no longer tell whether people are attracted to the product or attracted to the founder.
A strong personal brand can accelerate distribution, but it can also create false validation signals:
likes without intent
compliments without urgency
audience growth without actual demand
On the other hand, launching anonymously can make it harder to get initial trust and feedback loops.
Feels like the real challenge is separating “people support me” from “people would genuinely miss this product if it disappeared.”
That distinction probably becomes very important early on.
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@anushka_singh34 I am now trying 2 things – building a personal brand on LinkedIn, but sharing the building public journey of the product on X (but the product is intended for LinkedIn) – so my primary audience on LinkedIn and possible users may not know about my activity.
@busmark_w_nika That actually sounds like a smart split honestly.
LinkedIn probably gives you access to the actual buyers, while X gives you faster feedback loops during the messy building phase.
What’s interesting though is that the two platforms often reward completely different behavior.
X tends to reward:
- transparency
- iteration
- thinking publicly
LinkedIn often rewards authority, certainty, polished positioning
So founders can end up getting very different signals depending on where the conversation is happening.
Feels like one hidden challenge is making sure “build in public engagement” doesn’t accidentally become a substitute for real user urgency.
I think it depends on the product, the industry, and the founder.
If we're only talking about PH, I believe it's better to build your personal brand long before you launch.
We've analyzed more than 6000 launches and the most common among top launches are because the founders arleady had a solid PH profile with engagements.
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@heyitsirenechan did you find out anything interesting about their social media presence?
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@founder92 I think it can work both ways, but with a personal brand, you can have an advantage with distribution :)