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Authority is usually addressed as a brand is a way to reach people and gain their “automatic” trust.

When you have achieved some brand:

People trust you more.
People see you as a lower risk.
People want to collaborate with you.

Since I started GitHub20k, many people have contacted me for a paid consultation or my Launch Weeks service.

Before we continue, make sure you register for the DevSec Insights AMA session with me. I will talk about some open-source growth (I promise new tactics). It will be fun 😻 👇

https://www.linkedin.com/events/7109561824643047425

In Novu, we have two brands, Novu and your humble servant Nevo.

Having a brand for the company is an automatic procedure after spending a long time in the market and promoting your brand. We are all trying to do it.

Your best clients/customers will usually come from a word-to-month you have gathered over the years.

And while a company brand is strong, I think a personal brand is more robust - as people connect with people, not companies.

I have achieved a personal brand both in Novu and GitHub20k - there are multiple steps you can take to do it. Let’s talk about them.

1. Put your face everywhere

Make it seem like one person runs that company. You don’t have to use your profile picture, even though I recommend it, as people can understand it’s not a bot - use the same profile picture everywhere (Linkedin, Twitter, Newsletter, etc.). You want people to remember that you have this single pattern. They address it to you. Here is where you will see me.

Every newsletter I send is from my name.
Every article I write is in my name - don’t fall into the trap of having many personas in the company writing articles. Post everything from your account. I have written maybe 20% of the articles I produce.
Most tweets will go from my name and be retweeted from the company account. (post / reposted for the people that are new in X)

2. Run significant events and be the face of them

We run HackSquad every year, and even though I have the entire Novu team behind me, I am still in the spotlight.

Almost every post of the competition mentions me.
The same thing with ConnectNovu.

Events like that are essential because they can reach a broader audience - people who are not necessarily interested in notifications but the open-source community.

That’s why we managed to get 5,000 people last year (in 1 month), and we aim for 15,000 this year. (And yeah, it’s 15,000 people who interact with me daily).

3. Build in public

Share everything you can about the company, which can be any of the following:

Funding rounds.
The money you have made today.
The amount of PR got merged today.
The amount of contributors you have.
The next version of your app.

The more things you share, the more transparent you become, and people trust you more.

4. Share your secrets

In GitHub20k, I share almost every tactic I have “Hacked.”
This is one of the biggest boosters I have received lately that helped my brand grow. There are ups and downs to this.

The most extensive “up” is my transparency and credibility - if I offer you my tools, there’s a higher chance you will buy them from me as you trust me (more than the others).

The downside is that by telling my secrets - people start to use them, and over time, they will be less effective - I have to be creative and always find more secrets.

5. Build a personal brand

Personal brands are great.
You get to talk about things beyond the company's limits and increase your credibility even more.

There are so many examples of that, such as:

Noah Kagen, CEO of AppSumo, has OkDork
Eddie Jaoude (GitHub star), CEO of BioDrop, has EddieHub
Cassidy Williams (GitHub star), CTO of Contenda, has rendezvous with cassidoo

Authority amplifies other channels

When your personal brand works, other company channels will grow automatically - that can be your YouTube channel, ads, articles, etc.

You can see people interacting with the company knowingly who is behind it, so the intent is higher.

There are no shortcuts

I have learned that there is no shortcut to achieving brand - you can’t release your product and become a $1m company overnight.

The world doesn’t work that way.

In Novu, we went into a maturity phase - I felt it. After one year, more customers started to come, and more deals began to close, just because we had been a longer time in the market and kept doing marketing consistently.

Growth takes time.
The same thing happened to me with GitHub20k when I started.

I was at 0, and honestly, I was not even sure it could work - but since I knew the rule of growth, I kept going.

Do you need help?

Do you want to brainstorm about your product? Schedule a free meeting with me here. I might give you some “aha!” moments. Who knows 🙇🏻‍♂️

5 steps to build a brand for you and your repository