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Young Founders Try To Go Viral
Startup content // Image by Kait Cunniff with DALL-E
Young startup founders are increasingly feeling pressure to double as viral ambassadors for their companies.
Why It Hits: Building a company is already hard, so becoming a bona fide influencer adds another layer of difficulty — and pulls founders away from their core job of actually getting a startup off the ground. Still, many founders in their 20s say “building in public” has become the new expectation for growing a customer base and attracting investment.
Behind The Lens: Founders aren’t just learning how to market their product on social media — they’re learning how to market themselves, according to Insider.
Myles Slayton, the CEO of dating app Cerca, has posted hundreds of videos over the past year and only sometimes mentions the company. Still, he’s known as the “Cerca guy” around NYC.
Sisters Claire and Chloe Lee, founders of receipt-sharing social app Selleb, say they sometimes spend 70% of their day creating content for TikTok and Instagram. They also run a Substack newsletter.
Lucious McDaniel IV, founder of food-delivery startup BiteSight, said his viral posts helped his app climb the Apple App Store charts and secure funding. But competitors began circling for an acquisition, so he had to scale back his posting.
Final Edit: Going viral has become so ingrained in startup culture that VC firm Andreessen Horowitz even launched A16z New Media to help founders craft a social presence. A16z partner Lester Chen says going viral online “might not close the deal, but it gets a foot in the door.”
Then it’s up to founders to earn their place by demonstrating their product’s utility and their company’s path to monetization — in other words, not letting fleeting virality define the business.
Next Post: It’s only a matter of time until someone creates a Shark Tank for the social-media generation — with all the pitches delivered via short-form video.
Together with Mode Mobile
Apple’s Starlink Update Sparks Huge Earning Opportunity
Apple just quietly added Starlink satellite support to iPhones through iOS 18.3.
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Their global expansion is perfectly timed, and investors still have a chance to participate in their pre-IPO offering at $0.50 per share.
With 32,481% revenue growth and a newly reserved Nasdaq ticker, Mode is one step closer to a potential IPO.
*Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile’s Regulation A+ Offering. Mode Mobile recently received its ticker reservation with Nasdaq ($MODE), indicating an intent to IPO in the next 24 months. An intent to IPO is no guarantee that an actual IPO will occur. The Deloitte rankings are based on submitted applications and public company database research, with winners selected based on their fiscal-year revenue growth percentage over a three-year period.
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Boye Akolade. Copy edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.