Follow the Founder: How Candid Content Builds Connection
The Evolution of Digital Presence
Early in my career, I worked at a boutique marketing agency. One of the main services we provided to clients was social media management. This included strategizing with the brand to create content, schedule posts, monitor campaigns, and manage the community across platforms. Nearly a decade ago, this meant heavily curated brand content that highlighted key product features posted on Instagram and Facebook. This was right as influencer marketing and user-generated content (UGC) began to boom. This redefined how attention, and influence, worked online.
As audiences got tired of seeing picture perfect posts, influencer marketing and UGC content strategies began to drive growth for brands. Viewers become enthralled in the lives of influencers who posted about their day-to-day activities, propelling influencers into fame for the aspirational lifestyle they shared online. This was after Instagram changed from chronological feed to algorithmic feed. The new algorithm focused on interactions (likes, comments, shares), which led to marketers trying to maximize engagement to drive their post into more feeds. Brands just partnered with the influencer that had the largest audience to generate interest and sales. Then came Reels. Suddenly, static images with long descriptions gave way to short-form video.
The Rise of the Founder Feed
Now, brands are rethinking how to keep their audience interested. “Authentic, relatable content now outperforms overly polished, corporate-style posts”¹. I’m seeing many brands pivoting to a new founder-focused content strategy. Startups that are seeing the most success online are sharing behind-the-scenes content, snippets of their manufacturing process, and discussing the challenges when scaling their brands. This new wave is prioritizing relatability over aspiration to create an honest and approachable brand personality, starting with the founder. It develops a sense of trust with the brand - which is critical for growth. Consumers don’t want to listen to a video explaining the features of your product anymore. They want to hear the reason you started the brand to begin with or how you overcame a supply constraint to meet growing sales. Engagement today means more than just following and liking posts. Engagement means allowing your audience to be a part of the process - the successes and failures of launching a brand, the product development from concept to scaled production.
We’ve explored the theory behind the shift from polished, curated brand advertising to sincere, charismatic founder-driven content. But it’s far easier to grasp the theory with tangible examples. Here are a few of founder-led accounts capturing my attention:
Founders Who Get It Right
@buttergirlnyc
A small batch butter maker sharing the trials and tribulations of starting a brand while balancing a full-time job. Greer shares the nitty gritty of caramelizing onions, churning butter, and packaging for small pop up and limited time drops. She even takes audience recommendations for new flavours to launch, bringing her followers into the product development process.
@goodgirlsnacks
Best Friends, Leah and Yasmina, share the journey from concept to making the Forbes 30 under 30 list in just two years. The duo shares the story of the brand’s conception and mission to develop a pickle brand with innovative and natural flavours, organic ingredients, and packaging that appeals to their target market - Gen Z women.
@getsourmilk
Probiotic yogurt brand spreading education about the live cultures that set their product apart. Beyond the gut-health benefits, founders Elan and Kiki post the process of rebranding, engaging their community to brainstorm names with them. They also post behind closed doors footage of their manufacturing process, sharing the struggle of throwing away test batches in order to ensure the quality meets their standard
@leisureproject.co
The LA-based hydration beverage that’s making waves in retail and online. Brothers and founders, Steve and Alex, share details on the manufacturing process, quality assurance, and packaging design choices that have led up to their national launch in Whole Foods and growth in the Costco network.
The common thread among these examples isn’t storytelling - it’s strategy. Each founder is turning transparency into a competitive advantage.
The Business Case for Being Real
There are several, obvious reasons why this matters to brands. One being that spending is strongly influenced by social media. Consumer behaviour is shaped by peers, aspirational groups, and social proof. Additionally, frequently exposing audiences to brands is the first step in the awareness to purchase funnel. Social media shopping is small but growing rapidly. Beyond that, shoppers are using multiple touch points to flow through the funnel. They may become aware of brands on social media, use search engines or AI to gather product knowledge, then find the best retailer in their proximity to make the final purchase in brick-and-mortar. Discovery and purchase are more and more disconnected, which impacts how brands think about visibility and conversion online and offline. But there’s an even more interesting shift that could be causing the content strategy pivot.
The shift in content strategy could be coming from the changing consumer. The generational makeup of the population is swiftly changing. Needs, aspirations, and spending are different among generations². Brands need to stay ahead of the curve to ensure they’re creating loyalty within emerging and growing generations, specifically Gen Z.
Gen Z is the largest generation, the wealthiest generation, and has the fastest growing spending power³ - making them a crucial generation to win over for long term, sustained success. Gen Z has unique values, beliefs, and behaviours that distinguish them from other generational cohorts. Above all else, Gen Z values authenticity. “The importance of authenticity explains why Gen Z prefers advice from social influencers and customer reviews over traditional Hollywood celebrities” ⁴. This is why frank, unfiltered founder-forward content is thriving. Founder-led content taps into consumers’ empathy. People feel more affinity with people they see frequently, especially when imperfections and vulnerability is shown. This leads to audiences making purchases to be a part of the brand's success. When founders become the influencer, they’re capturing the next generations’ attention - and dollars.
The Future of Authenticity at Scale
The social media landscape is constantly evolving. Brands used to post only ads focused on product features or partner with famous influencers for sponsored posts. As engagement in this type of content waned, brands developed a new toolkit to captivate their audience. In the race for reach, brands may have forgotten what audiences really want - a reason to believe. Social media has become a place where brands share the story of why and how they developed their products. The new founder focused content is authentic and humanizes the brand. Sharing the challenges and how they’re overcome when growing and scaling a brand has become integral to building an engaged following online. This is important to brands because consumers use multiple touchpoints to go from awareness to purchase. Social media also heavily influences purchases, with more and more consumers purchasing directly off the platforms. Brands like Get Sour Milk, Good Girl Snacks, Butter Girl NYC, and Leisure Hydration are capitalizing on this by posting their honest successes and failures.
The next question for brands isn’t whether to be authentic, it’s how to sustain authenticity at scale when every founder becomes a content creator.
Sources:
1: Aaron Irmas (April 2025). How New-Age Social Media Marketing Is Changing and What You Need to Know in 2025. Business.com https://www.business.com/articles/how-new-age-social-media-marketing-is-changing-and-what-you-need-to-know/
2: NielsenIQ (March 2025). Unlock the unmatched buying potential of Gen Z: What Brands Need to Know. https://nielseniq.com/global/en/insights/analysis/2025/unlock-the-unmatched-spending-potential-of-gen-z-what-brands-need-to-know/
3: NielsenIQ, GfK, & World Data Lab. (2024). Spend Z: Gen Z changes everything. NielsenIQ. https://nielseniq.com/global/en/landing-page/spend-z/
4:NielsenIQ (January 2025)Connecting with Gen Z: The Demographic Science Behind Effective Marketing. https://nielseniq.com/global/en/insights/analysis/2025/connecting-with-gen-z/
