Your founder’s voice is your startup’s most valuable – and often most underleveraged – asset. I see this so often with startup leaders. They either avoid posting on LinkedIn (my employer) entirely or default to product features and sales pitches.
That results in the all-too-familiar rotation of hot takes, motivational quotes, and business updates that rarely spark real engagement.
There’s a difference between broadcasting and building relationships. The leaders who build true influence understand that. They build connection, trust, awareness, and pipeline by sharing lessons, stories, and insights that only they can offer. And build consistent formats for sharing their expertise to make it stick.
But should a founder’s way-too-packed schedule also include content creation? Let me help you answer that by asking you another question: When I mention Melanie Perkins, Rand Fishkin, and Marc Benioff, which companies come to mind?
You likely thought Canva, SparkToro, and Salesforce, right? That connection between founder and company is strategic. And a real growth driver.
This shift toward founder-led growth has caught the attention of major companies. PayPal’s job opening for Head of CEO content went viral on LinkedIn. Since then, Virio recently posted a Head of Content role paying $500,000 to $1.5 million annually. OpenAI posted a Content Strategist role paying $310,000 to $393,000 annually. Perplexity posted roles for Content Managers at $130,000 to $170,000 a year. These are strategic investments in executive voice as a growth lever.
According to LinkedIn’s new Founder-Led Sales and Marketing Playbook (which I co-authored), startups whose founders post consistently see 33% more leads, up to 3.7x higher deal sizes when prospects follow executives, and 22% faster deal velocity when buyers feel they “know” the founder.
So, how do time-pressed founders create content that drives revenue? Here are three strategies to turn your founder voice into trust, pipeline, and tangible revenue:
1. Lead With Perspective, Not Product
Most founder content reads like a brochure: “We help X do Y!”. While it’s tempting to go straight for the sale, people tend to scroll right past sales pitches. The less you talk about your product, the more people want to buy it.
As Gal Aga, CEO of Aligned, explains in the playbook:
“First, [people] listen to you, they feel like they’re deeply connected, they love the ideas you put out, they trust you, and then they have to check out what you do”.
People buy from people they trust, and the fastest way to build trust is through storytelling. Scott Albro, founder of Goldie, recommends three powerful story types that build trust.
- Customer Priority Stories position you as someone who understands the market rather than someone selling to it. Instead of “Our AI optimizes workflows,” try “Today, I met with seven independent pizza shop owners in Brooklyn. Their top issue? Managing order flow during peak hours, usually from 6 to 9 p.m…” You’re demonstrating market insight, not making a sales pitch.
- Transformational Shift Stories help people navigate change. “Right now, most pizza shop owners are upgrading their POS to better time pickups and deliveries. In the future, there’s an opportunity for AI to predict orders before they even arrive…” You’re painting a picture of industry evolution without positioning your product as the solution.
- Personal Journey Stories build credibility through vulnerability. “After college, I opened a pizza shop. I managed everything with paper and pen. I didn’t know the first thing about restaurants or technology, but I knew I wanted to make great pizza and support pizza makers…”
Don’t shy away from sharing mistakes or moments of vulnerability – these are often the posts that create an emotional connection and make the founder memorable.
2. Turn Your Daily Interactions Into Content Gold
Your calendar is a content buffet. Every customer call, demo, and “aha” moment is a story waiting to be told. The challenge is to spot the content hiding in your day-to-day interactions.
As Alec Paul, founder of SalesBrand, puts it:
“Treat your life like content. Be more like a journalist. You’re talking to customers every day. You’re the most connected to the pains that you’re solving. No one should know this stuff more than you”.
Try this: After each customer call, ask yourself three questions:
- What surprised me? (That’s your contrarian take.)
- What bothered me? (That’s your polarizing hook.)
- What lesson would save others pain? (That’s your high-resonance post.)
Now transform these insights into specific content formats that resonate.
- Op-Eds let you take a stance based on what you’re seeing. “We almost didn’t launch our analytics feature because early users said it was too complex. Here’s the data that changed our minds.” You’re sharing your decision-making process, not just the final decision.
- Behind-The-Scenes Features reveal the “why” behind major choices. “I promoted the wrong person. Here’s what happened and how we recovered.” This builds trust through transparency rather than perfection.
- Customer Interviews: Turn a direct customer quote into a hook. Example: “‘Your product is too expensive.’ What they really meant was…” You’re addressing common concerns while demonstrating market understanding.
Don’t wait for inspiration. Build a habit of jotting down insights as they happen. Over time, you’ll have a content bank that’s uniquely yours—no one else can replicate it.
3. Pack A Punch With Each Post
Now that you’re spotting stories, let’s make sure they land. Which also leads me to the section on questions I get the most often as a LinkedIn employee: What content and creative tends to work the best on the platform? Here’s what I advise for founder-led growth and executive thought leadership:
Start With Hooks That Stop Scrollers
Your hook is your headline. If it doesn’t make someone pause, the rest doesn’t matter. Gal Aga rewrites posts that don’t get traction in the first 15-30 minutes – his benchmark is one to two likes per minute.
Most people post what’s obvious. Obvious is forgettable; specific is magnetic. Instead of “AI is changing everything,” try “AI is exposing measurement vulnerabilities that always existed.” The second version creates curiosity about what those vulnerabilities might be.
Embrace Depth Over Brevity
LinkedIn data shows posts between 400-800 words generate nearly three times more engagement than those under 50 words.
As Gal notes:
“Short ‘influencer style’ ideas are nice. But for me, the real impact comes from giving people deep advice. Something they can present at a sales kick-off, a playbook, a strategy, a research breakdown, etc.”
Don’t be afraid to go deep if you’re solving real problems. Your audience will thank you for it.
Use Video To Scale Credibility
Video is the fastest-growing language of trust in B2B.
Rand Fishkin, who was early to video in B2B, explains:
“When I first started experimenting with video as a B2B content format back in 2007, I noticed a strange thing: the number of viewers was far lower than our usual blog readers, but the level of engagement, memory, and brand association was WAY higher.”
LinkedIn’s data supports this approach:
- Video creation is growing 2x faster than any other format.
- 98% of Fortune 500 CEOs who use social media choose LinkedIn as their primary platform.
- 63% of B2B buyers say video content helps inform their buying decisions.
Rand’s advice is to not overthink it.
“My full video creation process is incredibly easy, and takes me less time than writing a blog post – as little as 10 minutes to film, upload, and publish a two- to five-minute piece.”
Find Your “Prolific Zone”
This is the narrow band between “obvious” and “outrageous” where your content is authentic, polarizing, and painfully relevant.
Two approaches to try:
- Challenge conventional wisdom: “Always be closing is dead. Here’s how we 3x’d revenue by firing our SDR team.”
- Share taboo truths: “Why we let 80% of customers churn…on purpose.”
Track the pushback. If <10% of comments are negative, you’re playing it too safe. If >30%, you’ve gone too far. Somewhere in the middle means you’re onto something.
Work With The Algorithm
Drive the engagement you want by putting the “social” back in social media.
- Tag people thoughtfully.
- Ask meaningful questions to boost engagement.
- Reply to comments, especially in the first few hours.
- Post 3x a week, ideally between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. in your audience’s time zone (generally speaking).
Before You Hit Publish, Use The Punch Test
- Does this make someone feel something? (Emotion).
- Does this make someone think differently? (Insight).
- Does this make someone want to respond or share? (Action).
If the answer is yes to at least two, you’re good to go.
The Compound Effect Of Consistency
LinkedIn’s data tells a clear story: Startups whose directors post at least nine times a year see 3x more engagement and 4x more new followers than those who post only once. Trust is built over time, and a high-impact founder brand takes months to grow.
Sendoso saw an 11% higher win rate when prospects were exposed to LinkedIn posts from Director+ executives, and 120% higher closed-won deal sizes when prospects followed Director+ executives on LinkedIn.
These are clear signals. When Gal Aga says, “If 20%+ of your pipeline mentions your content, you’ve won,” he’s talking about attribution you can measure.
Your Move
The market doesn’t need another polished corporate account. It needs real humans solving real problems. That’s you. Every founder has a story – the ones who tell it well build companies, and movements.
Your competitors are either avoiding this entirely or outsourcing their voice to expensive content teams. That creates an opening. While they’re hiring $500,000 content strategists, you can build authentic influence by sharing what only you know.
Start with one post this week. Share a lesson from your last customer call. Take a stance on an industry trend you disagree with. Show the human side of a business decision.
Your expertise is already there. Your audience is waiting. The founders who act now will own the narrative tomorrow.
All data, quotes, and examples cited above without a source link are taken from the “Founder-Led Sales and Marketing Never Ends” playbook.
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Featured Image: Master1305/Shutterstock
