Demand Generation on Founder-Led Growth

Does founder-led content actually drive demand and clients, or is everyone just building a vanity audience?

Sat, 18 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Yes. Founder-led content does drive real demand and clients, but only when it is built around the problems your buyers actually have. Most founders who call it a “vanity metric” are posting content that gets likes but never mentions what they sell or who they sell it to. The ones who see pipeline from it tie every post back to a buyer pain point.

The difference between vanity content and demand content

The core question is not “should I post?” but “what am I posting about?” Vanity content is the motivational quote, the “day in my life” reel, the humble-brag fundraising announcement. It gets engagement from peers, not prospects. Demand content answers a real question a buyer is Googling right now, the kind of question you see on Reddit, in Slack communities, or in your inbox from prospects.

Does building in public actually work, or does it just attract other founders instead of real buyers?

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Building in public works — but the default version of it mostly attracts other founders, not buyers. Revenue screenshots, MRR charts, and “what I learned launching” posts are catnip for other builders and nearly invisible to the people who would actually pay you. To reach buyers, you have to build in public about their problems and outcomes, not your startup journey.

Why it attracts founders by default

Think about who finds each type of post interesting. A “we hit $10k MRR” screenshot is fascinating to someone trying to hit $10k MRR — another founder. It is meaningless to a buyer, who does not care about your revenue milestones; they care about their own problem. So the metrics-and-milestones content that dominates building-in-public naturally sorts your audience toward peers.

What's the difference between demand gen, brand awareness, and lead gen — and where should a B2B SaaS founder put the budget?

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In one line each: brand awareness makes people know you exist, demand gen makes them want what you do, and lead gen captures the contact details of people who are already interested. They’re a sequence, not competitors. For an early-stage B2B SaaS founder, most of your effort should go into demand gen — creating interest through content — because at any given moment only a small slice of your market is actually ready to buy.