2-HOUR MEDIA METHOD (PERSONAL BRANDING)
The new go-to-market is IRL plus content. Show up in person and build the content around the process. Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), the venture firm run by billionaires Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, has been openly preaching that every company will need a founder personality to lead it’s growth strategy. Anthropic is hiring a head of ecosystem to run it’s IRL initiatives and partnerships. PayPal recently hired for a new role: head of CEO content. The pattern is hard to miss.
It's the move Louisa and I have unintentionally used to grow Founders House from day one.
Six months ago, I posted a video on Instagram about wanting to build a work and wellness club for founders in NYC. A woman at a private membership club in Midtown saw it and reached out cold. Louisa and I met up with her in person back in September. That conversation is the reason we're opening Founders House at 22 Vanderbilt, right next to Grand Central. Money couldn't have bought us into that building.
Both of Louisa and I built our communities by accident here in NYC. I was hosting runs for founders in NYC for over 2 years (our latest run pictured above) before even thinking about launching a physical space. We had grown to over 20,000 founders before we launched. Kiki Couchman from sourmilk grew her email list to over 2,000 people before she even had a product.
Same play in all three cases. Don’t wait until you have the product to build a following. Start hosting events and making content. Tell the story along the way and doors will open that you didn’t even know existed.
It's also part of why I've been spending pre-launch in conversations more than in operations. I've spent the last few years building a media company for clinicians and creators to multiple seven figures. Founders coworking at the House have been sitting next to me asking how to do it for themselves. That's why I'm running a free Two-Hour Media Method Masterclass next Tuesday at 5pm. Same framework I use myself.