Is building founders’ social media personas becoming a new business? How does it cost?
The day before yesterday, I was looking at the profiles of founders and team members of Lovable, as well as other companies, e.g. Hubspot, and they all look pretty good.
Lately, I’ve been getting offers to help grow LinkedIn profiles from several founders, and I’m starting to feel like at least LinkedIn is hype.
Is this a new type of business? There are already companies primarily founded for this purpose.
I’m not saying it’s something new, but the founder-influencer trend is starting to become more established.
Have you noticed any profiles where this growth clearly has to be under the thumb of an agency?
Do you have any overview of the pricing?
Can you share some of them? Thank you!
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Oh, this is quite old. Back in 2023 I was receiving hundreds of offers to grow founders’ profiles on Twitter.
To some extent it makes sense, to some extent it doesn’t. Because having a strong profile is a distribution channel. But the truth is that it’s not so much the number of followers that matters, but knowing how to engage attention. Even a million followers won’t help you if you don’t know how to do that.
Distribution does help because it makes your products visible. As building products becomes easier and easier, reaching the audience becomes increasingly critical. So yes, if you want to have a key advantage, having such a distribution channel is definitely a plus and worth investing in. But the other thing is that you can’t abandon it. Because it will drop to zero if you don’t keep developing it.
@byalexai @nika
I maybe have a number to share, but before that, some rationale on why I think this is a valid business. I certainly feel the same pressure: building and marketing (and then customer service) are the pillars of starting and growing a software business.
Building is easier, less time consuming and more predictable. Personal profiles can be very powerful. In my view, in times of Gen AI it's extremely important to have an authentic voice and not churn out AI slop. This is why I believe, authentic social media profiles are very valuable and in turn, supporting founders in building social media presence will be valuable, as well. In addition, I think it will be not as challenged by AI as eg. software development, as the authenticity is the most important/valuable part of it.
I had a conversation with a podcast consultant, who (among other services) sells a package to help get a podcast going. this was only about the consulting, other more hands-on services like cutting/post-production/jingle-production/publishing would be add-on services. The consulting package would have cost me 5.000 EUR/6 months which I think is reasonable. As he had well-going podcasts himself, and customer testimonials, I would have trusted in him being very helpful for me.
I didn't buy it, as don't have a budget for it atm, as I'm bootstrapped and pre-launch. My checklist would be:
Do I think it's valuable (enough)? - For me the highest value would be the consulting, and guidance. I think when it comes to software, it's more valuable for B2B than B2C, CLV around 500-1000 EUR.. - (--> yes)
Do I think I can deliver on a sustainable basis (have sth relevant to say and can I say it in an interesting way, consistently?) - unsure, he helped me estimate the effort, it certainly is a stretch for me time-wise - (--> maybe)
Do I have the money? (no, I would only spend this amount of money if I see some basic traction, maybe I would start before it would completely be funded by revenue, but before any traction, I'd rather try to stay lean)
minimalist phone: creating folders
@byalexai That's the thing. I know a guy who wants to build a profile through content (OK) and, at the same time, build software. But the crucial part steps in when it comes to interaction. You need to lead dialogue. And that's something that can take you 2 or 3 hours per day. In such a case, the posts don't have to work as there is no engagement from the side of the account.
vibecoder.date
Honestly, half of twitter feels like this.
Everyone is optimizing, following one playbook or another. posting about the meta, and lots of agencies offer these services.
I've noticed it less on linked in.
It concerns me that this is becoming the only visible path to distribution. I value my privacy greatly. I do not wish to vlog my life to tell a story fabricated to make me look like a "true founder"
https://x.com/colingrowlancer this guy on twitter does the linked thing.
It's a hard market because linkedin frowns upon automation.
@build_with_aj
yes, me to, not only the privacy, but also it's also still someone else's platform: Distribution can be taken away, quickly. I think, there are still many valuable other avenues, but let's face it: How much time do we all spend in front of a screen, on this or that platform instead of eg. reading a magazine or going to the cinema. The olden times ways of advertising are still there, just not as relevant, any more. And its because we as users spend so much time on platforms.
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@build_with_aj @mitja_martini This is the fact. I can see many successful founders not showing their face and stories, but I am pretty sure, if they did it, they could have even bigger outcomes (ofc, with bigger outcomes and exposure, there will be more haters).
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@build_with_aj Does he have an agency managing the client's accounts on LI? I have never heard about him, but I will follow him. Thank you that mentioned this :)
To be honest, LI started to be a huge thing since it is full of CEOs, managers, future employees etc.
Yeah, it’s definitely becoming a real thing.
Founders are building their LinkedIn presence because people trust people more than company pages.
So it’s less about “influencing” and more about sharing how they think, what they’re building, and attracting the right customers or talent.
Very roughly, this is how it usually looks in terms of pricing, Early-stage or solo founders are on the lower end ($1.5k–3k/month), funded SaaS founders a bit higher ($3k–6k/month), and exec teams or full founder-office setups at the top ($6k–12k+/month). It scales with how much strategy, writing, and involvement is needed.
But, you can usually spot agency help when the posting is consistent and the story feels clear over time. It works well when it still sounds like the founder. It feels fake when everyone starts sounding the same.
Not just hype, but it only works if it’s genuine.
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@rashiaroraofficial It is some sort of inspiration and aspiration. When someone is successful (or at least looks like that), people want the secret formula behind that. But with exec teams and a 12k budget – is it for an agency or a full-time employee managing this?
One of the recent offers I got was around $5K/mo for building a network (growing connections and followers) and ghostwriting a couple of posts per week, but I dunno if this is a benchmark. There are also AI-powered tools that claim to cover both: create posts that adopt your writing style + connect you to the right people. The latter could be a game-changer, as it makes total sense to boost several profiles (like Lovable does), but focus them on relevant personas (Sales folks on Sales folks, Marketing on Marketing, etc) - to create a bubble around the decision making committee.
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@yulianazarenko Were you supposed to do these things as a full-time job? Or how many posts were you supposed to create per week?
@busmark_w_nika I think it was at least 3 posts per week. No, I don't think it's a full-time job, especially if you use AI tools at least for research.
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@yulianazarenko 3 posts per week is not so many, I was required 14 :D
@busmark_w_nika wow, they want you to open a content factory!!! :D
Vozo AI — Video localization
It feels like founder-as-distribution is slowly becoming the default advice, not a deliberate choice.
I don’t doubt it works — but I think it’s highly stage- and context-dependent.
For many founders, especially building globally or outside hype-driven markets, the real cost isn’t money. It’s focus, emotional energy, and long-term credibility.
Curious how people here decide when this becomes worth committing to — not just whether it works.
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@lightfield Today read something on this. That's probably why so many founders started betting on their personal profiles growth – they want to improve distribution of their future products :)
@lightfield hey, your observations resonate with me. I'm building a product which is heavy with data, so I have a nice source for thought leadership posting. Considering that it's a B2B tool in a relatively new niche where everything is so new, I'd say I defo need to establish myself as an expert as early as possible.
So my when is happening now - just because I understand that I need to become an early mover. If that wasn't the case - and the niche was already established - there might have been some other more efficient channels to get reach.