How to build an audience when you hate building a "personal brand"

If you’re like me, your feed is a daily bombardment of LinkedIn and Twitter wannabe Platos: dispensing life advice, telling some made-up story to push a product, or sharing their Ironman result. I found it cringe for years. But it’s now beyond reasonable doubt: social media might be a game, but it is the undeniable S-tier route to the most valuable commodity left — attention. In an age where you can literally build software products on your phone while sitting on the toilet, how do I get customers? is now 10x more important than what should I build?

And if you’re like me, the whole personal-brand thing makes you wince. It took me years to get over the judgment of parroting my daily thoughts online — but don’t worry, this won’t be the millionth article about overcoming your fear of posting. There are far better writers doing that. This is for people who already know distribution comes first and want the quiet alternative: you don’t need a personal brand to build a distribution asset.