How many hours did you spend on social media this week? 

And how many of those hours actually moved your business forward?

If you're not sure:

Yeah, I know this feeling all too well.

I've had months where I posted every day, replied to hundreds of AI comments, spent hours "researching" what's working for other founders.. and at the end my revenue chart looked like we just entered the great depression.

But hey, at least I won the screen time gold medal.

But then I had my first child.

Reclaiming my time

Having a kid has a funny way of cutting through BS.

After my son was born I started looking hard at how I spend my time. 

And I realized a lot of what I called "founder-led marketing" was actually just procrastinating in public.

Founder-led content done right is an incredible growth engine.

I've landed six-figure consulting offers from tweets. Sold hundreds of thousands in products to people who found me through a thread. I've been invited to speak at conferences in other continents (mama was proud, lol).

But I also wasted endless time and effort doing it the wrong way.

My main mistake?

Believing that followers = dollars

It seems logical. More eyeballs, more customers. Every "grow your personal brand" guru clickbaits you into believing this.

But followers measure how entertaining you are. Revenue measures how well you solve problems people will pay for.

Look at this graph:

Startup revenue vs founder Twitter followers. 1000 data points.

The founders making $11M-22M+ are clustered on the left (under 60k followers). Meanwhile people with 200k+ followers are sitting at the bottom of the revenue axis.

The biggest accounts aren't making the most money.

I stared at this for a while before I figured out something important:

The traps of building a founder brand the wrong way

You can spend years building a following and still make close to nothing. And it's not even your fault.

These platforms are designed to turn us into dopamine slaves.

They reward maximum time for you scrolling like a mad monkey, not revenue.

Nobody warns you about this until it's too late and you find yourself burned out while your business is still flatlining (BEEEEEEEEP).

The problem with digital dopamine is that you end up building an audience without selling anything. You get sucked into the feed like a degenerate with a reason in your head why it's fine.

Your moods get controlled by your posts. A post flops and your whole day feels like a weekend bender hangover. Or worse, some stranger leaves a dumb comment and you're angry for hours.

You call it research but you've just wasted three hours reading a thread about AI pancake machines. Trying to context switch between building your business and content is like meditating at a techno rave.

And you think you need to be everywhere, so you spread thin across five platforms doing mediocre work on all of them.

I've done this. MANY times. And I failed miserably.

At some point you start wondering if this whole founder-led content thing is even worth it.

It is.

But only if you take a different approach.

How to get great distribution for your biz (without the brainrot)

So how do you get the upside without falling into the traps we talked about?

It starts with asking yourself a stupid simple question.

What is the purpose of my profile and why am I building a brand?

Write it down.

There are really only four honest answers (in my case):

1. I want leads. You're talking directly to your potential customer about their problems and how you solve them. You're clear on who your ICP is. What keeps them up at night? You position your product as the solution. Textbook stuff ;)

2. I want authority. You're taking STRONG stances. Sharing insights others don't. No space for matcha Latte vanilla takes here. Being clear about what you stand against. This is how people start to associate you with a point of view. This gets you into rooms. People respect others being vocal about their opinion online.

3. I want to build in public. You share the messy middle. The wins and losses. How you actually work. This attracts other builders, potential hires, collaborators. Getting customers is NOT the main objective here imo.

4. I want to think out loud. You're exploring ideas. Sorting your own head out. This is more for you than for anyone else. Don't expect traction - that's not the point. This helps you to become a better creative thinker and problem solver. It will also attract people who are like you. This is the personality glue that holds everything together.

This is the filter you need to run every decision through.

Every post I create has to address one (or multiple) of these key pillars.

When you know your purpose, you can look at every post and every interaction.

Analyze your hours spent online with precision like a surgeon ready to cut.

Is this building towards my outcome or am I just keeping myself busy?

The people you engage with, are they helping you get there? 

Am I talking to someone who could become my customer, or am I trying to engagement bait for useless likes?

The "research" you're doing, is it just doomscrolling in disguise? 

That comment you're about to reply to, worth your energy or just feeding the trolls?

I do this review weekly (in hindsight) and I take 5 minutes before every single post that I write.

It’s a small habit that fundamentally changed the way I grow my business as a content-first founder.

When the flywheel finally starts flyyyyying

The more reps you put in this intentional direction, the faster you'll see (truly) life-changing results.

And they will come in many different forms:

Customers start finding you without spending a dollar on ads.

Investors already have their checkbook out before you ever pitch them.

Potential hires already know how you operate and what the latest inside joke is.

A tweet you forgot about leads to a DM that leads to a deal you never saw coming.

Your thinking gets sharper.

You don't know what you believe until you try to explain it.

Lastly, Accountability kicks in.

Post a goal publicly and suddenly you can't bullshit yourself anymore.

I've shipped things purely because I told the internet I would.

All of it starts with zooming out and becoming crystal clear about what the f
we are actually trying to achieve on social media.

Being a founder is hard already, but being a dopamine-slave founder is soul crushing.

Before you post anything today, ask yourself:

Am I building towards my outcome? Or am I procrastinating in public?

It’s so easy for us founders to get pulled into the wrong game.

See you next week

Ole

PS. I wish I could say I'm a saint here. I still slip into these habits more than I'd like to admit. This newsletter is as much a note to self as it is for you.

Have you found yourself in this trap? If you're building content alongside your business, I'd love to hear what's been challenging for you. Just hit reply.