Hey friend,
In this week’s newsletter, I’m excited to share a Q&A with Sukhpal Saini (Sukh) - founder of Engyne, a platform helping technical founders turn their ideas and voice into daily content. Sukh’s been building and selling in public for years, and his no-nonsense approach to personal branding is something every founder can learn from.
We covered the fundamentals of founder-led growth:
Why personal branding matters
Choosing the right platform
Testing your product early
Avoiding salesy mistakes
Sukh’s top long-term branding habit
Let’s dive in 👇
Reading time: ~9 minutes
1. Why should founders even bother with personal branding? Isn’t building the product more important?
Most founders think: build a great product, and people will come. I’ve learned 36 times - it doesn’t work like that.
A business = product + distribution. Without distribution, nobody knows you exist. Personal branding is how you create that distribution.
If I try to sell, I’m just another salesperson. If I share value and build trust, people buy because they trust me. That’s the real edge for early-stage founders, especially up to $1M–$5M ARR.
Think of it as building 1,000 true fans. Products can be copied, but your trust and distribution can’t.
2. Once a founder buys into the idea, what’s the very first step they should take?
Start with your LinkedIn profile - it gives the biggest ROI.
Most founders’ profiles look like resumes: School, GPA, Excel skills. That doesn’t build authority. You need to reframe it.
Update your photo, rewrite your headline and summary, and position yourself around your mission: why you care, what credibility you bring, and why people should trust you.
Everyone checks your profile - investors, hires, even customers. If your story is clear and trustworthy, they’ll buy into your mission from the start.
3. For someone just starting out, how do they pick the right platform?
Ask two questions:
What content do you enjoy creating? (If you hate video, don’t force YouTube. If you like it, that’s your edge.)
Where are your customers?
B2B → LinkedIn
B2C → Twitter or Instagram
Reddit → good reach, weak conversions
I personally double down on LinkedIn. But here’s the hack: if a post works on one platform, 90% of the time it’ll work on another. I’ve copied-pasted posts from LinkedIn to Reddit and seen them blow up.
But as a founder, time is limited. You don’t need to be everywhere. Pick one platform you can show up on daily without hating it - that’s the one to focus on.
4. Many technical founders hesitate with sales. What’s a small, low-pressure first step?
Document one thing every day: a decision, a launch update, or an industry thought.
Here’s why: people won’t remember every post you wrote, but they will remember that you show up daily and talk about certain topics. That builds familiarity and trust.
Most founders hesitate because they think, “Everyone already knows this.” Not true. Even if we’re both in startups, your learnings from running, say, an agency are totally different from my SaaS journey. We can both learn from each other.
So stop assuming your insights are obvious. They’re not, and sharing them is the fastest way to start selling without “selling.”
5. A lot of people overthink what to post. How do you come up with content ideas?
Personal journey → Share where you came from and the key moments that shaped you. (For me: moving from India in 2014, repeating grade 12, then making it into university and beyond.)
Customer pain points → Talk about the problems your audience is facing - like getting leads, hiring, or raising investment, and share advice or commentary.
Daily lessons/building in public → Show what you’re working on today. Even small decisions, like design choices, make great content.
I’ve stuck with these three pillars for four years. It removes the stress of “what do I post today?” You can even plan a 30-day calendar around them.
6. Consistency is the hardest part. What system helps you keep showing up?
Honestly, that’s why I built Engyne - I wanted a system to help me post daily.
Here’s what I do:
On Sundays, I jot down ideas for my three content buckets.
Each day, I just pick one and expand it into a post.
But writing isn’t easy for me, I freeze up. So instead, I talk it out. Engyne lets me record myself, and it turns that into content. You can even do this with ChatGPT voice: ramble your thoughts and ask it to turn them into posts.
It’s a lot easier than forcing yourself to sit and write from scratch.
7. How can early-stage founders test if their product is sellable before building for months?
You have to sell whether the product exists or not. The benefit of selling early is discovering if what you’re building is actually what people want.
Build a quick prototype with no-code tools, then send 20 messages a day to your target users.
What you’ll learn:
Maybe you thought it was a $300/month product, but people only want to pay $10.
Maybe you expected 10 out of 20 people to say yes, but only 1 did.
Do this for a week or two. If the numbers and feedback make sense to you, keep going. If not, pivot and repeat. That way, you know before sinking months into building.
8. When you post content, what signals tell you it’s resonating?
Engagement helps, but the real signal is people reaching out. If someone says, “Hey, I’ve been thinking about what you posted,” that’s gold - it means the content landed.
Most readers are lurkers. They may never like or comment, but later they’ll say, “I’ve been following you.” That’s impact.
So don’t over-index on likes. Real resonance shows up in conversations, referrals, and memory.
9. What mistakes do founders make when using content for sales-led growth?
They start with a business owner mindset: pushing links, pitching too early, trying to “trick” people. It feels salesy, so people ignore it.
Good founders take a creator mindset: focus on value, build trust, let sales happen as a byproduct.
10. Beyond LinkedIn and Twitter, Reddit feels tricky. How can founders use it without being salesy?
Redditors can smell promotion instantly. What works is documenting real experiences.
I once wrote a breakdown of how I spent $4,000 on ads - what worked, what didn’t. No pitch. It got 900+ upvotes. Only after people asked did I mention my tool.
Rule of thumb: provide value first, link later (if at all).
Genuine posts win; ads get roasted.
11. What are your top 3 go-to marketing tools?
LinkedIn: 70% of my day goes into LinkedIn. I create content, network with people, prospect customers all through LinkedIn.
Dripify: The most time consuming part of prospecting through LinkedIn is you have to connect with people first and then only you can send them a message. Dripify automates this which saves a lot of time.
Beehiiv: I write a weekly newsletter and honestly, Beehiiv is the easiest platform I could find to start with - very happy with it!
12. Finally, looking back, what’s the one branding habit with the biggest long-term impact?
Two things:
Showing up every day - consistently sharing my journey built trust and opened doors like podcasts, speaking gigs, and new audiences.
Networking intentionally - building real relationships with other founders. When I launch, I can lean on 10–15 people, and they can lean on me.
Trust + relationships = the long-term compounding effect.
Connect with Sukh!
▪️ Find him on LinkedIn.
▪️ He writes a weekly newsletter sharing the hard lessons he’s learning as a founder, read it here: sukh.beehiiv.com
▪️ Want to build a personal brand, try engyne.ai for free
That’s it for today.
I hope this was helpful and gave you something to take into your week.
Catch you in the next one!
Maryam
P.S. If you’d like help with growth marketing strategy, content, or community - that’s what I do 👇