Tactical insights for first-time founders to outsmart the burn, the churn & the breakdown.

Hey Founder,

You don’t need a million followers.

You do need trust.

There was a time when startups hid in stealth mode: cubicles, NDAs, and the classic “we’ll announce when it’s ready.”

That’s old news. Now we build in glass houses. Your feed, your blog, your open roadmap, they’re the front row to your work.

It’s where customers peek in, give feedback, cheer you on… or call you out.

Where investors notice you before you even pitch.

Where your next hire might follow quietly for months before sliding into your DMs.

Trust (and great products) get built in public, through the context, the aha moments, the “what now?” pivots, and the messy middle.

Not just broadcasting. Co-creating.

This issue: why stealth mode isn’t the safe play anymore, and how building in public sharpens your product, rallies your people, grows your personal brand, and puts your name in rooms you haven’t entered yet.

Here’s the wild part: we often trust strangers on YouTube more than polished CEOs on stage. We’ll buy skincare from someone still fighting acne. We’ll back a product because a guy on X showed us his messy backend.

Why? Because transparency feels like truth, and truth builds the kind of trust that moves people to buy, join, and invest, not just in your product, but in you. And when people trust you, that trust follows you anywhere: new company, new market, new role.

Steven Bartlett grew Social Chain to millions in annual revenue by narrating his founder journey on LinkedIn long before his podcast or Dragon’s Den fame, creating a founder brand so strong it opened doors for every project that came after.

Ben Francis started Gymshark in 2012 with £500 in his garage and built it into a billion-dollar brand, hitting £100M+ ARR, by showing the lifts, the factory tours, the design sketches, and the Black Friday crash that led him to handwrite 2,500 apology letters. An unscalable act that created lifelong loyalty.

Sahil Bloom went from 500 followers to 1.5M+ in under three years by sharing his learning journey in public. That personal brand now fuels his investments, partnerships, and every new product launch.

Pieter Levels runs Nomad List and Remote OK, two solo SaaS businesses doing $3M+ ARR, built entirely by sharing revenue charts, product decisions, and even code snippets daily on Twitter. His personal brand now drives customer growth without ads.

The Stan Store guys? Its founders didn’t just “ship fast.” They showed the shipping-earnings screenshots, feature feedback, and daily product pains - turning customers into a real-time R&D team. In under two years, they grew from $0 to over $2M MRR, with just 8 people, from a product no one had heard of before Twitter.

The point? Sharing openly doesn’t just tell your story; it compounds trust, speeds up iteration, fuels word-of-mouth, and builds a personal brand that opens doors.

Entrepreneurs used to spend years grinding in silence, only to launch and discover… nobody wanted their product.
Today, that truth can land on your desk on day one, along with a small crowd of early believers.

The real question isn’t should you share.
It’s: why are you still building in the dark?

You’re not Palantir. You’re not working on classified CIA tech. They had to stay quiet, and that silence cost them almost a decade before meaningful revenue. You don’t have that excuse.

Share your work, build a circle of beta testers, keep yourself accountable, and quietly craft an investor-ready track record, all while learning sooner and wasting less. Every update is a deposit into your brand equity, the kind of reputation that compounds like interest and pays you back in every future venture.

1. Choose a platform

Pick where your audience actually hangs out. Focus on relevance over reach, you only need the right 1,000, not a million.

2. Start a build thread

3. Open up your metrics dashboard

(Bonus) Document, repurpose, share

A founder friend asked me last week:

Fast truth:
It’s probably not your onboarding. It’s your value.
When people disappear after trying your product, they’re not confused… they’re unconvinced. If the pain you solve really mattered to them, they’d be back without you asking.

What to do next:

Share what you’re learning → get answers faster → fix the real problem → repeat.
Retention isn’t just a metric; it’s the loudest proof that your product and your personal brand are solving a real problem.

Send it my way, just hit reply.

📂 Resources for Building In Public

When it comes to storytelling, what works for one founder might totally flop for another. The point isn’t to copy someone’s playbook — it’s to borrow ideas, then make them yours.

Before you go…
These days, “brand” gets tossed around like a buzzword. For some, it’s just a logo, a LinkedIn post, or a box to tick. But the brands people actually remember? They’re built by showing the messy, the human, and actually connecting.

People remember a handwritten apology more than a Black Friday discount.
Like Chewy sending flowers (not coupons) when a customer’s dog passed away.
Or mailing a sympathy card when someone cancels a subscription, without trying to win them back.

That stuff doesn’t go viral because it’s a “strategy.” It spreads because people talk about it, communities form around it, and investors take notice. And when you share those real moments - the wins and the losses - you make it easier for people to root for you, buy from you, and tell your story for you.

Next time you’re tempted to send a generic email, ask: what’s the human thing I could do instead?
Those moments add up. They become the reason customers stay for years, not months. And they’re also the reason you become the founder people remember — no matter what you build next.

Genuine connection. Generosity. Care.
That’s your real moat.

See you next Thursday,
—Mariya

Hit reply and let me know. I read every single one (for real).

Hey, I’m Mariya, a startup CFO and founder of FounderFirst. After 10 years working alongside founders at early and growth-stage startups, I know how tough it is to make the right calls when resources are tight and the stakes are high. I started this newsletter to share the practical playbook I wish every founder had from day one, packed with lessons I’ve learned (and mistakes I’ve made) helping teams scale.

Mariya Valeva

Find me on LinkedIn