The Rise of 'Founder' Marketing

It's all about vibes

We live in the Vibes Era.

Charisma can be monetized easier now than at any other point in the history of humanity.

Meaning: people will buy from you if they think you’re a cool guy.

It sounds insane, but people are building multimillion-dollar businesses where their entire marketing strategy is centered around the founder being likable.

Here’s how.

Podcast appearances

Podcasts are the modern version of infomercials.

Multi-hour long segments that ostensibly exist to inform you, but in reality are just extended advertisements.

George Foreman: the OG of Founder Marketing via infotainment

You think it’s a coincidence that every podcast guest just happened to write a book and it just came out within the past month?

If you want to train your marketing muscles, listen to any random podcast and the whole time you’re listening think to yourself: what is this guy promoting?

Eventually it’ll be obvious (that’s the moment when you’ll stop listening to podcasts recreationally).

To understand why this works, you have to understand the psychology behind why people love podcasts so much.

When people become addicted to podcasts they start to feel like they know the host personally. They feel like the he’s their friend and if they somehow stumbled across each other in real life they and the host would be instant buddies.

“Oh my god you listen to my podcast. No WAY bro. Let’s hang out and grab some beers. Shit man, you want to be a guest on the pod next week?”

That’s really what people think would happen.

In reality, the host would probably call the cops if one of their fans tried to talk to them unsolicited.

But people don’t think like that. Everyone thinks they’re special.

I’m sure you’ve had the horrible experience of talking to a grown man IRL who repeats phrases he heard from Joe Rogan verbatim as if they were his own original thoughts.

It’s nauseating.

So from there it follows that if they’re dumb enough to think the podcast host is their friend, they also think the guests on the podcast are friends with the host.

By appearing on the podcast, viewers consider you to be essentially a friend of a friend.

This greatly increases the chances they’ll buy from you.

Warning: You may also get weird mentally unbalanced people approaching you in public, so be careful.

Longform YouTube videos/shortform clips

Youtube is the most important platform and it’s not even close.

If you have good on-screen charisma there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be shooting as many videos as you can.

No amount is too much.

As a founder you shouldn’t be doing the grunt work of editing and uploading the videos though. Pass that off to a contractor. Your time is too valuable to be wasted on that type of minutia.

But the actual content itself should be all you.

The Goulet Pen Company YT channel is a good example of Founder Marketing for an e-com business.

Don’t make the mistake of blandly reading some bullshit AI script either. Vibes and vibes alone are the reason anyone watches longform videos. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. The quality of the information has little-to-nothing to do with it.

A lot of people don’t create videos because they believe no one will watch.

“Durrrr people don’t have the attention span for long videos these days durrrr”.

It is true that attention spans are declining across the board.

But it’s also true that people LOCK IN when they’re actually interested in something.

And even if they aren’t fully paying attention to what you’re saying, they’re still hearing your voice.

Many people become straight-up addicted to certain Youtube channels even if they aren’t paying attention to a word the person says.

Nomad Capitalist is a good example of Founder Marketing for a consulting business.

Like a crackhead, they log on and click on your videos and then open a new tab and start working.

Since you’re reading this it means that you’re smart and you know multitasking is impossible.

But realize that people hate and fear silence.

So they play videos ‘in the background’ to quiet the voice inside their skull that reminds them that they’re living a pointless life where they spend the majority of their waking moments doing things they hate so they can make money for someone who could care less about them and their existence and that they’ll keep doing this day in and day out until they’re old and grey and on verge of crossing the chasm into the infinite darkness of death and that’s if and only if they’re lucky enough to not die young before retirement which when you think about it is really nothing more than an interval of time where you do nothing and watch your body fall apart until it eventually shuts down and you cease to exist forever and you’re consciously aware of this while it’s happening but hell it’s the only thing you have to look forward to in this life so you spend the entirety of your youth and middle age treating it as some type of goal to strive for and a promised land that you’re inching your way towards even though in reality everything sucks and wills suck forever and there’s no way out.

When you create Youtube videos YOU can be the guy who distracts them from these thoughts. YOU can be the cure to the existential angst of the average working American.

And, most importantly, you can profit bigly.

Because even though they aren’t fully paying attention to the words you’re saying, your viewers are vaguely aware of the business you own.

So when they’re ready to buy a product in your niche your business will be top of mind.

That’s how Youtube works.

No need for the hard sell. No need to sell anything, really. Just make sure people know what you sell and they’ll buy from you when they’re ready.

Regular social media

Video content is king when it comes to Founder Marketing.

But it doesn’t hurt to have a presence on regular social media.

Usually people dominate on one platform and have a minimal presence on the others where they can’t seem to get traction.

The type of platform you succeed on will depend on your niche.

Health, crypto, anything that targets men will do well on X. Looks, fashion, anything that targets women will do better on IG.

The key here is to have a personal account, not a branded one.

People want to feel like they’re ‘friends with the owner’.

Use your official branded account for product announcements and stuff like that. For vibes, it should all be under your name with your face.

People want ‘authentic’

It sounds corny as hell (and it is) but people have a strong craving for ‘authenticity’ and want to feel like they’re watching videos with Real People™.

Of course, you and I know that nothing you see online is authentic.

Podcasts are fake. People pay money to appear on them so they can promote their stuff.

People’s personalities online are fake, especially when they have ‘founder of [insert company name here]’ and a link to their business website in their profile.

No one is actually putting their whole personality online. That would be insane.

What people really want is fauxthenticity. They want the feeling of authenticity that you only get when someone is being completely fake.

All marketing is about feels over reals, and that includes Founder Marketing.

Remember that and you’ll go far.

Don’t be the idiot who posts a video of yourself crying on camera or something like that because you think it’ll make you seem authentic.

Imagine being the face that shows up when you Google ‘crying CEO’. Yikes.

It will, but the problem is nobody wants it.

Remember: be fauxthentic.