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😍 Trends PRO #0109 — Personal Brands

"Your personal brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room." - Chris
Ducker
💎 Why It Matters
You have a brand. Whether you know it or not.
🔍 Problem
You need to show why you are worth trust and attention.
💡 Solution
Your personal brand determines if and how you are seen.
Charlie D'Amelio started as a down-to-earth TikTok personality. Now she uses her brand
to add value to portfolio companies in her $25 million VC fund.
Sahil Bloom uses viral business threads to attract an audience for his newsletter. His
audience is the perfect value add as an angel investor too.
Steph Mui’s viral tweets about the founder's struggles attract an audience for both
herself and PIN.
🏁
https://pro.trends.vc/c/trends-pro-reports/trends-pro-0109-personal-brands 1/12
🏁 Players
30/05/2023, 22:52 Library | Trends.vc
Personal Brands
Marie Kondo • Established herself as the face of ‘tidying’. Now she runs a major
consultancy business branded the KonMari Method.
Bill Nye • Spent years crafting a persona as the world’s foremost science educator.
Casey Neistat • Used his unique video style to position himself as the king of vlogs.
Malala Yousafzai • Youngest ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate. World-famous for her
courage and education activism.
Gary Vaynerchuk • Positioned himself as the face of grit and entrepreneurial
determination.
QTCinderella • Twitch streamer who leveraged her brand to start The Streamer Awards.
Mark Manson • Sells life advice that doesn’t suck.
(📈 Pro ↓)
Nardwuar • The human serviette. Became a music legend with his quirky persona,
interviews and tagline.
Tony Robbins • Used events and keynotes to become the most well-known life coach.
Chris Baker • Viral marketer and copywriter who uses personal projects to get press.
Timothée Chalamet • One of the most influential men in fashion.
Charli Marie • Creative director who built a brand around her travels and lifestyle.
Funghibull • Built his brand on supporting and empowering digital artists.
Andy Kreed • Content designer who grows his brand with viral tech memes.
Jim Cramer • The most famous voice on the stock trading floor.
Paul Graham • Y Combinator founder whose essays have become entrepreneurial gospel.
Pema Chödrön • American nun and writer who has inspired millions of people worldwide.
Naval Ravikant • Entrepreneur and angel investor famous for his professional wisdom.
Aella • Sex worker turned public intellectual and social commentator.
Neil Patel • Marketing content and SEO expert who has become a key figure in digital
marketing.
Sheryl Sandberg • Operations and management savant who has used her brand to
empower women as executives.
GCR • Respected voice in crypto. Known for his prescient investing wisdom.
Jesper Kouthoofd • He thought he’d live in a 1-bedroom apartment forever. Now he’s one
of the most respected names in design.
Joshua Browder • Called the ‘robin hood of the internet’ for his startup’s mission.
Dave Ramsey • Used his radio audience to become one of America’s voices on financial
freedom.
Sveta Bay • Grew her brand around audience building and bootstrapping.
Sol Brah • Grew his pseudonymous brand talking about men’s health.
Arianna Huffington • Founder of The Huffington Post known for her outspoken nature.
Personal Brand Tools
Google Alerts • Get alerts from Google when you’re mentioned online.
Descript • Edit videos as easily as editing a doc.
Podcast Hawk • Get booked as a podcast guest on auto-pilot.
SpeakerHub • Build your professional speaking platform to get booked for events.
Twitter Streak • A free tool to track and increase your Twitter growth.
(📈 Pro ↓)
BrandYourself • Track and manage your online reputation.
ClickFunnels • Automate your personal marketing funnel.
WiseStamp • Create a sleek professional email signature.
Mem.AI • The self-organizing workspace.
Hypefury • Personal assistant to grow and monetize your Twitter audience.
MatchMaker.fm • Find podcast guests to interview and get booked for more exposure.
Peech • The generative AI for video content creation and editing.
Taplio • The all-in-one tool to grow your personal brand on Linkedin.
Runaway • AI-powered content creation tool.
Kickresume • Let AI help you write and design your resumé.
Jasper • One of the most popular AI writing tools.
🔮 Predictions
More people will become nano-influencers. They will find narrow niches for their
brands.
WeTheHobby streams on WhatNot to a small audience of loyal sports collectible
enthusiasts.
Jen Lauren is a self-care video creator who can offer more of a personal touch than
major influencers.
Jade Melcher built her brand on clean beauty and non-toxic living with high-quality
product photography.
Nathan Young is well-known in the prediction market community. Outside of it, his
name would be unlikely to ring a bell.
Creators will automate more aspects of brand operations. Such as creating content and
engaging with other creators.
Pascio uses Tweet Hunter to write and automate his content schedule.
Kyle Handy uses Facebook’s creator studio to schedule his posts on real estate.
Youri van Hofwegen automated his Youtube content for 365 days and earned
$47,000 from 2.6 million views.
Pseudonymous ‘personal’ brands will lower key-person risk.
BitClout founder ‘diamondhands’ raised $40m from Sequoia and other major
investors.
Litquidity uses its brand to market content services, a job board and angel investing.
Parik Patel and John W. Rich create content on finance. They attract audiences with
viral content based on their characters.
Youtubers like Dream attract millions of followers fascinated by anonymity. His voice
was known but his looks were only recently made public.
Personal and professional brands will merge. People want to feel that they can trust you
on a personal level.
Shaun White uses his personal brand to market Air + Style and WHITESPACE. Both
brands reflect his energetic and avant-garde spirit.
Gary Vaynerchuk is one of the foremost marketing influencers. His famous
personality helped him build a massive content business.
Ariana Wolf’s “personal professional brand” helps use authenticity to grow her design
business. Yet she keeps strict boundaries about sharing her personal life.
(📈 Pro) Corporate social media accounts will act like personal brands to earn trust.
Their content will focus on the people behind the brand to be more relatable.
Ryanair won people over on social media by leaning into the brand’s budget
reputation in a self-aware way.
Planet Money and Chipotle build personal connections by asking team members and
influencers to take over their company accounts.
Zaria Parvez built a reputation as the social media manager behind Duolingo's virality.
Duolingo benefits from relatable content in a way that corporate accounts rarely do.
The CEO of Life360 used his personal social media to win kids’ trust for the family
tracking app. He shows how he makes the app less prone to parental abuse while
keeping kids safe.
(📈 Pro) Individuals with strong personal brands will white-label commoditized

consumer products.
Private-label beauty brands make it easier for creators to start cosmetics lines. SEED
Beauty produces Kylie Cosmetics.
Virtual Dining Concepts lets creators create virtual restaurants in food delivery apps.
See Flavortown Kitchen and FaZe Subs.
(📈 Pro) Personal brands will be operated by teams as they scale. Creators will focus on
growing business instead of the fine details of their content.
Marques Brownlee is one of the most viewed tech reviewers. But he’s not alone. He
has a team that helps with content creation.
Ghostwriters like JK Molina and Charlie Light built careers out of Twitter ghostwriting.
Now they employ teams of writers.
MrBeast attracts millions of loyal viewers. He started solo but now employs a huge
team. He still has his face on every thumbnail!
(📈 Pro) Businesses will hire in-house influencers. People who have built an audience in
a business niche will take priority.
DeeZe used his reputation in the NFT community to become the Director of Vibes at
Tessera.
Michael Dion used his personal makeup account to prove his TikTok prowess.
Skincare brand WLDKAT hired him to run their account.
(📈 Pro) Business leaders will become more accessible. You can’t expect to earn trust
and new opportunities if you aren’t making yourself available to them.
Mark Cuban reads every email he gets. He doesn’t reply to all but is open to new
opportunities.
Cindy Diffenderfer from Orion Haus engages with customers. People respect her for
making herself available to any level.
(📈 Pro) People who offer services will use personal brands to build scalable
businesses. They will sell content or build tools to help more people than they could
serve manually.
Anna Jones is a chef who sells cookbooks and content on ethical plant-based
recipes.
Scott Galloway is a marketing professor at New York University who scales his
teachings with books and content.
Jim Wendler scaled his personal training business with ebooks and paid content
which details his 5/3/1 training plan.
(📈 Pro) People will become living memes. A single viral moment is often enough to
build a lasting brand.
Salt Bae used his viral video to grow his chain of luxury steakhouses with a personal
touch.
Bernie Sanders’ viral memes helped him build an approachable image among younger
generations.
Rebecca Black’s “Friday” went viral for all the wrong reasons. Now she’s using it as a
kickoff for her music career.
☁️ Opportunities
Build tools to help creators automate aspects of their personal brands.
Creators use Synthesia to turn scripts into video content read by a realistic avatar.
Hassan El Mghari made a tutorial on how he used OpenAI and Vercel to build a
Twitter Bio Generator.
SayHi generates thoughtful intro messages personalized to who you’re messaging on
LinkedIn.
Virtual Youtubers allow a single ‘persona’ or channel to be a whole team. The actual
gameplay and commentary no longer need to be done by a real person.
Use social proof to grow your personal brand. Mimetic desire shows that people are
more likely to trust you if someone they admire trusts you.
Benjamin got many venture capital connections after a prominent investor followed
him.
Therapist Phil Stutz and his tools for ‘life transformation’ are a trending topic. Jonah
Hill featured his positive experience with ‘Stutz’ on Netflix.
Katelyn Bourgoin became “the customer whisperer” by helping and teaching
marketers. She uses her reputation to get customers for Customer Camp.
Build a content production system to stay consistent.
Easlo uses Notion to manage his TikTok, Twitter and Youtube content in one place.
Dileep Karri wrote 30 essays in 30 days to boost his writing and build a content
production system.
Jonathan Hawley published the framework he uses to lower friction when managing
his ideas.
Build in public. Share your story to build trust and grow your audience.
Atul Anand built an audience for his Notion templates by tweeting about the process.
Art Lapinsch built his brand around Biz Ops by asking for feedback on courses he
makes.
Oliver Martinez hit $2,000 MRR and 40,000 Twitter followers by tweeting about his
apps’ progress.
Karthik Sridharan shares how he grows Flexiple and buildd to $3,000,000 ARR to
grow his audience.
Kieran grew his audience of no-code students by tweeting about his learning process.
He's gone from non-technical founder to solo builder.
(📈 Pro) Define your personal brand’s value proposition. Target a specific niche with
valuable content. Like a normal business.
Dan Kulkov from MakerBox used a content matrix to gain 1,000 followers in 50 days.
Pete Vargas shows you how being a speaker is the best way to build an audience.
Alice Thorpe says her background as a designer and content creator qualifies her to
help you sell your creative work.
(📈 Pro) Repurpose content for different platforms and languages to boost your reach.
Nadya Khoja turns long-form content into smaller articles.
Jake Tran turns his Youtube video essays into short-form content on Facebook.
Amanda Natividad posted her influencer marketing guide as a Twitter thread and
blog.
MrBeast caters to a global audience by dubbing original videos in dozens of
languages.
(📈 Pro) Start a newsletter. A pre-existing, engaged audience will give your next project
a head start.
Chris started DesignHero to grow an audience of designers and founders.
Jakob Greenfeld writes Business Brainstorms to get an audience of founders.
Nick Kolenda writes about psychology and marketing for 65,000 subscribers. Now he
sells courses.
Harry Dry’s Marketing Examples has grown to 130,000 subscribers. He shares quick
marketing tips and examples each week.
Lenny Rachitsky grew Lenny's Newsletter to 300,000 subscribers. He used his
personal brand to make a podcast, build a job board and find angel deals.
Katt Risen got 3,000+ subscribers with No-Code Exits. She’s built a reputation in no-
code while getting $1,000 in revenue and 700+ new subscribers each month.
(📈 Pro) Optimize your social profiles. Simple changes can make a big impact.
Daniel Vassallo says you should improve your pinned tweet and bio.
Jan Koch split-tests his Twitter bios to find a message that boosts conversions for his
brand.
Blake Emal treats his Twitter banner like MrBeast treats Youtube thumbnails. He
keeps it simple, clear and high-quality.
(📈 Pro) Write guest posts. Give value to those with existing audiences while sharing
your own content.
Alex Turnbull used guest blogging to reach more than 1,000,000 people for Groove.
Harry Jones wrote about The Meme Economy on Balaji Srinivasan’s blog. It now
ranks on the first page of Google.
Upasna Kakroo from Brandanew invites writers like Enakshi Sharma to post on the
company’s blog. Upasna gets quality content and Enakshi gets an audience.
(📈 Pro) Engage in communities where your target audience hangs out.
Sean hosted a math and physics night at The Commons in San Francisco.
Frankie grew to 20,000+ followers by sending 10+ DMs every day and engaging with
10+ peoples’ content.
Bill Lennon asked his community where to find the best Discords for researchers
working with large language models (LLMs).
Amelia Sordell made $850,000 from her personal brand. She sets aside 9 mins a day
to comment on 9 different posts from people in her niche.
(📈 Pro) Start a community in a niche that you’re passionate about and can add value
to.
RevGenius founder Jared Robin built his community by helping others grow theirs.
Dru Riley grew the Trends.vc community to more than 55,000 founders (like you) in 2
years.
Max Haining launched 100 Days of No Code to help creators and professionals learn
no-code.
(📈 Pro) Launch a podcast. Find guests that overlap with your target audience to
piggyback on their communities.
Noah Kagan built an audience by having guests share valuable insights on OkDork.
Rob Walling started Startups for the Rest of Us to build an audience that fits his
brand of a serial entrepreneur.
Kelly Lundberg started a branding podcast loved by entrepreneurs. She uses it to
promote her other channels and offers.
James McKinven started Indie Bites. He asks indie founders to share their stories and
insights. James and his guests benefit from co-marketing.
(📈 Pro) Become a gigfluencer. You can grow your creator business as a side hustle
without giving up the security of a full-time job right away.
David Shapiro makes videos about automating generative AI alongside his day job.
Eve Arnold has grown to 3,000 followers by sharing lessons on writing alongside her
day job.
Lily Montasser splits her identity as a creative director and influencer. She uses her
personal brand to build a reputation in fashion.
Fashion gigfluencers like Krissy Jones and Marie-Louise Scio get major attention
from brands. Why? Because they can be so selective about who they work with.
🏔️ Risks
Key-Person Risk • Some businesses are nothing without their Influencer-in-Chief. Learn
how to make your business work even without you at the helm.
Platform Risk • Social media websites can suspend or shadow-ban your account.
Diversification helps to avoid being de-platformed.
Legal • Beware of the legal implications of what you do online. Especially if you offer
advice or run giveaways.
(📈 Pro) Reputation Risk • Beware of how you present yourself and what you share. A
single careless statement can cause lasting damage to your reputation.
(📈 Pro) Criticism • Not everyone will be a fan of what you say or do. Make sure you’re
mentally prepared for handling criticism.
(📈 Pro) Burnout • Maintaining a personal brand can be overwhelming. Take care of
yourself.
🔑 Key Lessons
Help people. The simplest way to build an audience is by offering real value. Share
advice, tools and insights to get trust.
Start creating now. It can be scary to ‘launch’ your personal brand. Don’t let fear stop
you from achieving your end goals.
Consistency matters. Nothing you do is as important to your personal brand as showing
up on a regular basis. Learn what works by keeping the content flowing.
(📈 Pro) Be authentic. Modern audiences aren’t interested in robotic brands. They want
real value from real people to whom they can relate.
(📈 Pro) Get social proof. Everything from a Twitter follower to a guest post on
someone’s blog will boost your reputation. Get trust by showing that reputable people
respect you.
(📈 Pro) Focus on quality, not quantity. Getting followers is easy. Building an engaged
and valuable audience is harder but far more useful.
(📈 Pro) Meet the press. Seek media opportunities by making the connection between
what you’re doing and what people already write about.
🔥 Hot Takes
You don’t need a plan. Many of the most successful personal brands started with
creators enjoying themselves. Engage with your favorite communities and see what
happens.
People will become impossible to cancel. There is a subculture for everyone. Especially
those shunned by the mainstream.
Most personal brands were obsessed with conforming to social expectations. Now they
will try to differentiate themselves.
(📈 Pro) Pseudonymous personal brands will let creators make risky choices. Without
personal reputational risk.
(📈 Pro) Businesses will need their employees to use their personal brands. Big
companies need to show that there are real people running the show. Pat Flynn is the
main driver of customers for Smart Passive Income. DeeZe is Tessera’s top evangelist.
😠 Haters
“I'm uncomfortable posting such personal content. Loss of privacy scares me.”
Lots of people feel this way. Building a personal brand doesn’t mean you need to share
intimate details. There are many ways to add value and earn peoples’ trust without getting
too personal.
“Building a personal brand takes too much time for an ROI that’s unclear.”
Just because you can’t measure the outcome like a paid ad doesn’t mean it’s not driving
results. If what you’re doing is working, you’ll grow your network one person at a time. Your
personal brand is a lifelong investment. Don’t chase immediate ‘sales’ and follower counts.
“Personal branding is a way for people to promote themselves and their own interests. It's
not helpful for their company or organization.”
Why not both? Instead of stopping your team from building a reputation, support them!
Feature the people behind your business and help them grow their brands. Everyone wins
when your team has respect in your industry.
“I want to grow my personal brand, but I don’t know what to talk about. I don’t have any
expertise that people would find valuable enough.”
What do you enjoy talking about? Write what you are most passionate about. Even if you lack
a certain talent or knowledge, you can share your learning experience. It can be both
entertaining and insightful to others.
🔗 Links
1. You have a personal brand… whether you know it or not • The tweet behind this report.
2. How to Use Twitter for Thought Leadership • How to use Twitter to grow your brand.
3. Why You Should Craft a Powerful Personal Brand • Jake Jorgovan shares how his
personal brand drives 68.56% of his revenue.
4. (📈 Pro) Building a Strong Personal Brand With Podcasting • How to grow your brand
with a podcast.
5. (📈 Pro) How-To Write Personal Brand Stories That Have Substance • Learn to tell your
story.
6. (📈 Pro) 4 years. 4 AMA's. 1M views • How Ivan used AMAs to amplify his personal
brand and product.
7. (📈 Pro) Don't Put Yourself Into a Box • Why you shouldn't niche down early as an online
creator.
8. (📈 Pro) How to Become Insanely Well-Connected • Chris Fralic shares 7 rules for
making memorable connections.
9. (📈 Pro) 13 Tactics to Monetize Your LinkedIn Network • Learn how to grow your
revenue by using your personal brand.
10. (📈 Pro) Kick-Ass Personal Branding on Social Media • Creative guide for your social
media accounts.
11. (📈 Pro) The Future of Branding is Personal • Talaya Waller talks about sharing human
experiences as branding.
12. (📈 Pro) An Introvert's Guide to Building a Personal Brand • Even introverts need to
build their brands.
📁 Related Reports
The Creator Economy • Becoming a creator is a necessary tool to craft your brand.
Audience-First Products • Build trust with your audience before you start selling.
Build in Public • Grow your personal brand by building in public.
Consulting • Use your personal brand to attract clients.
Lead Magnets • Use lead magnets to build an audience for your brand.
🙏
🙏 Thanks
Thanks to Felipe Collins, Stewart Townsend, Soma Mandal, Jed Crystal, Alessandro
Franceschi, Ralph Quintero, Uwe Dreissigacker, Daniel Berggren, Lwany, Hassan, Andreas
Lohr, Pooja Patel, Arvid Kahl and Bernardt J. Vogel. We had a great time jamming on this
report.
✏️ Harry researched and wrote this report. Dru and Emin edited this report.
HJ JP DR Liked by Dru and 6 others
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30/05/2023, 22:52 Library | Trends.

😍 Trends PRO #0109 — Personal Brands

(📈 Pro) Individuals with strong personal brands will white-label commoditized

entertaining and insightful to others.

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