Framework
Founder-Led Content as Enterprise GTM
Building in public on LinkedIn and in industry media creates brand recognition before the first sales conversation. For enterprise deals, this eliminates the trust gap that kills cold outreach and can replace years of relationship-building with months of content.
How it works
- 1The core mechanism: when a prospect receives cold outreach from a company whose founder they have seen thinking publicly about their problem for months, the trust barrier is already partially crossed
- 2News-jacking is a legitimate content strategy: attach your company's point of view to trending headlines in your category - for Kadence, every return-to-office news story is an opportunity to be the authoritative voice
- 3Enterprise deal signal: if an enterprise buyer mentions they saw you on LinkedIn before your rep reached out, you have evidence the content strategy is working
- 4The competitive moat: in most B2B categories, private equity-backed competitors are not building in public - they are optimizing for quarterly numbers, not brand building. First-mover advantage in content compounds
- 5Art of war balance: be public about your philosophy, customer wins, and product direction - but be strategic about specific features in development that competitors could copy before launch
- 6The measure: track what percentage of your pipeline first heard of you through content vs. cold outreach. Over time, if building in public is working, that ratio shifts toward content-sourced deals which close faster and at lower CAC
Hear it on the podcast
The $40,000 Desk: Why Offices Will Never Be the Same AgainListen to the episodeMore from this episode
The Vitamin-to-Painkiller Pivot DiagnosticTest whether your product is a nice-to-have or a must-have before investing in scale. Vitamins require constant education and pushing; painkillers generate inbound demand because buyers already feel the pain. When you find the painkiller version of your product, the sales motion changes completely.Hybrid Cadence DesignDesign in-office time around specific outcomes - mentorship, collaborative decision-making, team energy - rather than arbitrary day counts. The goal is a rhythm that gives employees genuine flexibility while preserving the interactions that cannot happen asynchronously.
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