Build your audience before you need them
For months, I kept telling myself I wasn’t ready to share business insights publicly. “Wait until you hit 7 figures,” I thought.
“Wait until you’re really successful and everything looks polished.”
Then I realised that by then, I might not have time. External shareholders, board meetings, different priorities. The window to help people could be closed forever.
I now know it’s a race to own space in someone’s mind before your competitor gets there first. You either achieve it by burning cash through ads or by building an audience. The brands winning today? They built audiences before they built products.
Grace Beverley launched TALA to a community that already knew her. Chiara Ferragni had fashion followers before her shoes, and eventually, a clothing line. They didn’t start marketing from zero – they had people already invested in their stories.
So how do you win this race?
- Partner with people who already own your audience. Don’t build from scratch when you can collaborate.
- Tell stories that spread faster than your product. People share stories, not spec sheets.
- Build loud enough to be remembered. Consistency beats perfection every time.
- Create allies who fight for you when you’re not in the room. Your community becomes your sales team.
- Inject your product into conversations that matter. Be where your customers are already talking.
This isn’t about hype – it’s about sovereignty.Distribution isn’t just how you grow, it’s how you survive. If no one talks about you, you don’t exist. If no one believes in you, you won’t raise funding. If no one brads about your product to their friends, you won’t scale.
Look, maybe I’d grow faster if I stopped making content and focused purely on operations. Maybe not. But here’s what I know – in today’s market, if you’re not building an audience, you’re falling behind.
Stop waiting for permission to share what you know. Start claiming your space before someone else does.
