If you read this newsletter edition about content strategy and founder content strategy, you might assume I’m a proponent of founder-led content.
Actually. I’m not.
That piece was about how to do it thoughtfully if you’re going to do it. I had crafted that for brands who didn’t actually intend to start off with focusing on the founder, but grew into it (let me know if you want me to go more into that later).
This newsletter is the question that you should be asking before all of that. Should you even do founder content?
My honest answer, most of the time, is no.
Founder content is in the short-term cheap and fast. You are there — you’re your own unlimited resource. You are your own working-around-the-clock employee. You don’t need to brief yourself, there’s no talent fees, and you are the only sign-off. You have an idea, and you can just execute it. You pat yourself on the back and tell yourself you’re being scrappy. I get it.
But that isn’t a content strategy. And it’s cheap and fast in the short-term, but you’ll pay the cost of it later on.
I’m going to be brutally honest. Female founders feel a lot more pressure to put themselves in content. There’s a thesis in this — and a separate one in how female founders are held to different standards than their male counterparts, further emphasised in founder-led content. See: the arc of the girlboss era: the up, down, the return and the questioning of it. I have a lot of thoughts on this which I can’t cover here otherwise I’ll get off track — comment if you want me to elaborate on this.
Before a founder starts posting, the question worth asking is: do you actually want to be a creator?
Behind the paywall: the structural risks, why customers are fatigued with watching founders pack boxes (you want engaged customers, not pity purchasers), and what to actually do instead.
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