Hi Reader,
Every once in a while, the entrepreneurial ecosystem reminds us that power doesn’t always sit where you expect it to. Even in 2023, India’s youngest future billionaire wasn’t “too big” to sell a $5 product on LinkedIn. And that one, deceptively simple mindset difference is exactly what’s holding most founders back today.
In today's newsletter, we unpack something I’ve been observing for years across Brain Box, - be it startup founder consultations, podcast conversations, and even during the many founder journeys Arpita and I have navigated while building our ventures. It’s the same pattern repeating.
Founders who treat visibility as optional invariably cap their valuation, their deal flow, and their ability to negotiate meaningful exits.
Let’s break that open.
In 2022, Aravind Srinivas was essentially building Perplexity in stealth to the outside world. Shipping fast, iterating quickly, operating with monastic focus, but without the flamboyant visibility we usually associate with founders of category-defining companies.
Fast forward to 2025, and Perplexity sits at nearly a $20 billion valuation, handling hundreds of millions of queries a month while being positioned as a credible challenger to Google’s search dominance.
Here’s the twist most people miss: this same founder - now appearing on rich lists as India’s youngest billionaire - was selling a $5 product on LinkedIn. No ego, no pretence, no hesitation about “whether this is appropriate for a founder”.
That’s the signal. Real confidence shows up in one’s willingness to sell small in public while quietly preparing to build big in private.
Why most founders get branding completely wrong
Founders often sequence their priorities like this:
Build the product -> Raise capital -> Scale the operations, and then someday, when things stabilise, think about their personal brand.
That sequencing is not just flawed - it’s fundamentally backwards. Global data points to a simple truth:
Nearly 45 percent of a company’s market value can be attributed directly to the CEO’s reputation.
That means investors, talent, customers, and even the media instinctively anchor their perception of your company to you, not your pitch deck.
Yet many founders still dismiss visibility as a distraction, even when that visibility is the lever that reduces their cost of capital, elevates their pricing power, and draws qualified opportunities into their orbit.
If your personal brand only “shows up” once you’ve already succeeded, you’ve already left disproportionate value on the table.
Messages shared by real humans (founders, leaders, employees) travel over 500 percent further than corporate posts. They don’t just move farther; they spark nearly eight times more engagement. People trust people. Logos don’t move the needle, but leaders do.
If almost half of your enterprise value is tied to your reputation, then neglecting your presence is not humility. It’s an expensive strategic oversight. Your personal brand isn’t vanity. It’s a silent pricing engine.
What the greats already know?
Look at how the most influential leaders operate: NVIDIA, Meta, OpenAI, Oracle - their founders are inseparable from the company narrative. India’s rising entrepreneurs like Nikhil Kamath are being shaped the same way. They aren’t just operators anymore; they’re symbols. And symbols scale faster than systems.
If you’re not consciously shaping your story, someone else - or worse, no one at all - is.
How founders can start building while they build?
A simple, high-yield starting point:
- Show up at least 3 to 5 times a week on one platform. For B2B, it’s still LinkedIn. Share what you’re thinking, building, breaking, fixing, learning.
- Rotate your content: opinions, behind-the-scenes, frameworks, customer stories.
- Convert attention into assets: newsletters, webinars, long-form content.
- And don’t be precious about price points. Selling a $5 toolkit publicly today trains the muscle required to close a $5M deal tomorrow.
The founders who win are not the ones who wait for perfection. They are the ones willing to be seen early, consistently, and authentically.
If you’re building something meaningful, your name should be compounding as aggressively as your metrics.
|
|
Why Arpita built her YouTube & LinkedIn channel when she had 2.5 Mn Instagram reel views in 2024.
LinkedIn post
|
|
|
Until next week,
Kaushik (LinkedIn) | Perplexity Fellow
|
