Every founder today is told the same thing: build in public, share your journey, make it personal. So they do. They post the first office setup, share reels about burnout, and create carousels titled “5 Lessons I Learned the Hard Way.” And yes, the numbers look great. The applause feels good. The reach spikes.
But none of this guarantees sales.
And the bigger, more dangerous question is this: what happens when the founder stops posting?
In a post-Shark Tank entrepreneurship era, visibility has become a requirement. A founder must now be part-CEO, part-creator. And it’s not entirely their fault. Investors encourage it. Marketing teams amplify it. Social media rewards it. But visibility doesn’t mean conversion.
“We’re watching founders mistake engagement for growth,” said a Bengaluru-based investor. “It’s not just unsustainable, it’s distracting.”
Virality ≠ Sales
“We got over 13 million views on one reel and 5 million on another. How many shoes did we sell because of that? None, may be,” said Debanti founder Ugra.
Visibility feels good. It’s immediate. It’s measurable. And it only gives the illusion of momentum.
“People clapped and told me, ‘That’s so cool,’ but I was like, it doesn’t matter; it went to the wrong audience.”
The founder-as-influencer model is seductive because it humanises the brand. Consumers want to see the person behind the product.
But when that person is the product, the brand becomes fragile.
If the founder takes a break, the company disappears from the feed. If the founder faces backlash, the company shares the blow. If the founder burns out, the company loses its voice.
You Are Not Hailey Bieber or Andreessen Horowitz
The influencer-founder fantasy, made aspirational by Hailey Bieber or Andreessen Horowitz doesn’t translate to India. They have global PR networks, production capabilities, and hundreds of millions in capital.
You don’t.
You’re probably bootstrapped. Or running on investor pressure. Or calculating runway month by month.
“In India, one bad quarter can end you,” said a Bengaluru brand consultant. “You can’t post your way out of a cash crunch.”
The founder’s role is to build something that outlasts them.
To create a brand that has its own voice, its own ecosystem, its own relevance; independent of whether the founder is posting or not. A brand that can survive leadership changes, personal evolution, or simply the founder stepping away.
“The great use of life,” philosopher William James once wrote, “is to spend it for something that will outlast it.”
That’s what founders were meant to do all along.
To build something that sells, scales, and sustains.