I’ll never forget the first time I called myself a founder in front of a crowd full of people. My business partner and I were at a technology summit in San Francisco. As we walked through the corridor and past the check-in booth, we gave each other sideways glances. We were the only women in the room.
This would be the first time I'd give my “elevator" pitch to a group of people I had never met before. I was uneasy. Just a few hours prior, I had been practicing in front of the mirror, deliberately speaking with confidence and conviction. But as I shook the hands of the men standing next to us, I could hear the shakiness in my voice and the sweat on my palms as I recited the words carefully, not to forget any important detail. I didn't sound very confident at all.
Truth be told, I was brand new at this thing. A total novice. I had just graduated from college and took a giant leap into entrepreneurship with my business partner. Together, we wrote our business plan and created our pitch deck. We secured meetings with potential investors and joined an Accelerator program for startups in San Francisco.
As a first-time founder, I felt painfully under-qualified. I saw myself as an impostor—and it showed. I lacked confidence in myself and struggled to advocate for my place at the company; in fact, many people questioned my role and whether I was the right person for the job.
I heard things like:
Is she really the right person for this position?
Does she have what it takes? She doesn't look very good on paper.
Will her inexperience keep the company from growing?
These objections circulated in conversations between my colleagues and advisors. I was devastated. I felt there was a disconnect between who I was and who they thought I was. Any founder knows the incredible sacrifice it takes to build something from the ground up, and here I was, in jeopardy of losing it all.
Deep down I knew I was capable and competent, but it didn’t matter what I knew. It mattered how I spoke about what I knew. And I wasn’t speaking up for myself nor was I communicating my value in a way that my colleagues and potential investors could understand.
How I Changed the Trajectory of My Career
I realized I needed to clarify my message and build my personal brand. This would help me look more credible, I thought.
So I got to work. I improved my social media profiles, built my own personal website, and began creating content for social media. I looked to other experts who had built their personal brands and modeled my content and my website after theirs. I posted regularly on my blog, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and I started a podcast where I interviewed industry experts on entrepreneurship and social media. Slowly over time, I built an engaged audience across multiple platforms.
But something was off...
My experience on social media felt clunky and inauthentic. I used Instagram and LinkedIn as a means to impress others. Almost as if to say, "Look, here's me! Look what I can do and how much I know. Now, do you trust me?" It took a while before I understood that I was building a personal brand out of fear and insecurity, not from a place of love and authenticity.
When I discovered TikTok, everything changed. My first viral video was about loneliness, and it changed the way I viewed personal branding forever. After almost ten years of creating content, I had never had something receive so much engagement (somewhere past 40k likes.)
It felt rewarding to create something that resonated with so many people. A piece of content that wasn’t educational, informative, or anything of that nature. It was just…. me. A reflection of how I felt on the inside.
For the first time ever, things started to click.
I stopped posting content I thought others wanted to see, and I started posting content I wanted to create. I used social media as an outlet for creativity and self-expression, while still sharing helpful information that showed others how to build their personal brand. I stopped struggling through my work, and I started enjoying it. And the results were magnanimous.
My business grew exponentially, I started working with clients who were an amazing fit for me, and I grew an audience of 150k+ in less than a year. I was asked to share my expertise at conferences and events. My writing was featured in places like Foundr and Entrepreneur Magazine. And above all else, I got my confidence back. I was able to share my story with more grace and self-assurance than ever before.
I started building my personal brand because I thought it would help me "look the part." What I didn’t expect was that it's so much deeper than this. It's not just about raising your visibility or establishing yourself as a credible thought leader. It cannot and will never be a construct to hide behind; rather personal branding is about sharing who you truly are with your online communities. It’s a pathway to discovering yourself and your purpose.
And it’s my hope that you will experience the joy and fulfillment that comes from knowing and expressing yourself authentically, both online and offline. Because what's on the other side, is nothing short of life-changing. I know, because building my personal brand has quite literally changed my life. And it can change yours, too.