Founder-Led Marketing - B2B Marketing Channel You Should Start

What is Founder-Led Marketing?

The driving force behind any company, whether it is an early-stage startup or a late-stage company, is truly its founders. For those founders, it is about the story and the problems they are trying to solve.

And to be thrust into the forefront of the company, becoming the brand and building an audience. That's the beginning of founder-led marketing.

The founder who wakes up every day trying to solve this problem, building better products for their customers, and whose passion translates into authentic stories is what makes people want to follow. People are eager to join that journey and see how the founder will progress, crash, burn, rise above, learn lessons, and ultimately succeed. In some ways, it's a hero's journey that we all want to subscribe to and be inspired by.

Who are some examples of B2B founders doing Founder-Led Marketing?

Some B2B founders are paving the way by offering a template on how to do Founder-Led Marketing.

Folks like Adam Robinson from R2B2B, Chris Walker from Refine Labs, Marie Martens from Tally.so, Enzo from June.so., Amanda Zhu of Recall.ai, Dave Gerhardt of Exit Five, who wrote the book on Founder-Brand. Also, listen to Founder Led Marketing show by Finn Thormeier.

These founders share authentic stories and transparent learnings, provide templates, and discuss their perspectives on the industry, along with status updates on their companies. "Where are some rough patches?" They are building in public. They also engage with other founders, answer questions, strive to be helpful, and continue creating podcasts. They attend conferences, consistently at the forefront of representing their company.

While tracking signups may yield inconclusive results, these founders understand that effectively representing their company can enhance trust and credibility, thereby accelerating and multiplying the impact of their other marketing and sales channels.

How to build Founder-Led Marketing?

One challenge of founder-led marketing is that it can be very time-intensive and requires some experimentation.

Starting Point, Your Mission 

First, it comes down to the mission and the reason why you wake up each day trying to solve a problem. This forms an authentic brand voice. That passion will shine through in everything you do, write, say, and share.

Build Content Ideas around Your Mission and Your Journey

Next is communicating that mission every step of the way. As you move forward in this journey, whether you are an entrepreneur, a growth-stage founder, or an executive at a large company, how are you handling current challenges and how have these situations affected you? How do you use your mission to continue being a guiding light as you overcome these hard times? That is the lesson learned and shared that others want to hear.

Stay Present

Start sharing those stories. They can be accomplishments, failures, or even micro-wins for you and your team. Engage with commenters; don't just post. The algorithms of LinkedIn and Instagram do not reward posting alone.

Find your Cadence

In the spirit of experimentation, post daily to refine your messaging and communication style. When starting out, much like exercising, it's all about building consistency. Whether consistency for you means one LinkedIn post a week or two, maintaining that consistency is key to developing a long-term founder-led marketing strategy. Once that consistency builds up, it's time to explore different formats like videos, webinars, podcasts, interviews, guest posts, conferences, and more.

Reflect on your Validation

Starting out can be very difficult, and just trying to gain traction might feel slow. Is it even worthwhile? Take some time to gather affirmations - whether it's a joyful comment on your post, a compliment from your audience, or an engaging conversation with people in your community and network. Write those down and emphasize that your story is inspiring.

What are the benefits of Founder-Led Marketing?

Your Audience for Life

Building a personal brand means cultivating an audience for life. Whether you change jobs or embark on starting your next company, you have established trust and credibility with your followers. They will continue to support you throughout your journey. Moreover, you can carry this audience with you wherever you go.

Gathering Feedback

As you build in public, you also gather real-time feedback from your audience - what resonates, what doesn't resonate, and how you will position your company. This involves answering many questions (objection questions), navigating around detractors, and identifying your supporters while listening to them about what will make them continue to champion you and advocate for you. Collecting this feedback in real-time is invaluable for founder-led marketing.

You can Start Now

It's a marketing channel that you can start now. It's low-cost - all it takes is your time, writing a story, building that narrative, experimenting, and seeing what works. As a founder, you are the definitive driving force and powerhouse of your company. By being at the forefront of this, you are driving your company.

Conclusion

Founder-led marketing focuses on authenticity and expanding your network by sharing your expertise, personal stories, and establishing credibility with your audience while fostering a community. From this foundation, you drive awareness of your company and product, gaining real-time insights into your target audience. It's a powerful approach to growth.

Read more about my startup journey: https://growthwithgary.com/archive?tags=Startup

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I am Gary Yau Chan. 3x Head of Growth. Product Growth specialist. 26x hackathon winner. Building ClarityInbox. I write about #PLG and #BuildInPublic. Please follow me on LinkedIn, or read about what you can hire me for on my Notion page.