Hubspot Founder Dharmesh became the A.I. King—Here's How

Have you ever heard this:

“You’re a founder? How come you’re not putting yourself out there?”

Well, you’re not alone.

As entrepreneurs, the world just assumes you’d be excellent at building your personal brand.

But they don’t know the reality.

That it's not that easy.

It’s f-king difficult.

I am Josh, your friendly neighbourhood professor at The Big Brand Theory.

Wait, let me put my glasses on.

And I am back with a crazy case study that will give you everything you need to grow your personal brand.

Today's deep-dive is one of the smartest founders out there when it comes to building a personal brand.

In the next 5-minutes, we’ll break down Dharmesh Shah's framework of becoming a CEO-lebrity.

Yes, Dharmesh Shah, co-founder of Hubspot.

If you don’t know him, (I don’t know what world you’re living in),

Here’s a little summary for you:

Some may even call him ‘The AI king of the startup world’.

How?

The B-M-W Framework to Dharmesh’s Brand Success.

No, wait. 

I didn’t mean BMW, the car company.

It’s the acronym for Dharmesh’s strategy.

You know what? Instead of talking about it, let’s just dive right in.

1. Break market patterns

Now, this one concept alone can take you from zero to being your industry champion.

What concept, you ask?

For that, let’s do an exercise:

Go on YouTube and search ‘Dharmesh Shah’.

Okay, I know you didn’t do it. It’s fine. Let me tell you anyway.

There you’ll find countless videos of Dharmesh breaking down Vector Embeddings and god-knows-what AI terms on the pod.

But surprisingly, he’s not explaining it on AI related channels, as one might assume.

Instead, he’s speaking on every NON-TECH business podcast:

• MyFirstMillion

• This Week in Startups

• 20VC with Harry

• Sequoia Capital Podcast

Notice something?

There’s a billion-dollar strategy hidden behind this.

It’s all about taking your gun and pointing it in a different direction.

In other words, taking your skillset and creating content for an unconventional audience.

Dharmesh, whose expertise lies in AI, didn't create content to the obvious audience (AI developers, and programmers).

Instead, he chose to educate entrepreneurs who have zero knowledge of AI.

And hence, he became the go-to AI person for startup founders and executives.

So cool, right?

As infamous content strategist Nicholas Cole puts it: “Don’t change your WHAT, change your WHO”.

A couple of months ago, he launched AgentAI: a newsletter explaining how founders can use AI in their business.

Soon, when Dharmesh realised that it was still way too complicated for a non-tech founder, he rebranded the newsletter to ‘SimpleAI: The Magic of AI Made Simple For Mere Mortals’.

Now Chris Do, an Emmy award-winning designer, did something similar.

He noticed that all the designers were focusing on creative freelancers.

That's when Chris decided to teach designing to accountants, bankers, and finance guys.

Now think about it, Can you use your knowledge or skill set to serve an audience that everyone else is ignoring?

Now think about it, can you use your knowledge or skill set to serve an audience that everyone else is ignoring?

2. Mark your learnings

The moment you start connecting to an unconventional audience, you’ve won half of the battle.

How do you win the other half?

It’s by making sure they trust you.

How do you do that?

By documenting every single lesson, mistake, and failure you’ve gone through.

“Document, don’t create.”

This is something Garyvee has said, I don’t know, a thousand times!

Most people talk it down, thinking they don’t need to build trust among the audience.

“I have worked with XYZ brand, isn’t that enough to show I am credible?” They say.

Well, think about it this way.

Dharmesh Shah has built and invested in multiple billion-dollar businesses. He employs more than 3,500 people. He’s been interviewed by all the major entrepreneurial publications including Forbes and Inc.

He has all the social proof you can think of.

Yet, he still documents everything he’s learned.

From culture-building in startups to angel investing.

See for yourself: https://www.onstartups.com/ 

If Dharmesh feels the need to do it, what makes you think you don’t?

3. Win their hearts by being you

Okay, I have to admit, this is not an unconventional tactic.

In fact, this is the most obvious thing when creating meaningful content.

But as Naval Ravikant said (we covered him in the last edition, read it here),

“Stick to the fundamentals.”

The fundamental when it comes to personal branding is to be authentic

If I had a dollar for every time Dharmesh cracked a dad joke, I’d be as wealthy as Dharmesh.

Seriously.

Recently, I was watching this summit where Dharmesh was the keynote speaker.

This was quite literally the first 3-minutes of his speech:

1. “I got the idea in 2 BC. I mean... Before ChatGPT.”

2. “The best time to call me is email.”

3. “The worst thing you can do to me is put me between a bunch of people I don’t know and force me to make small talk.”

4. “One thing better than a chart that looks like a donut, is a donut that looks like a donut.”

I am sorry, I am getting off-topic.

But see what I am saying?? He’s too charismatic to be ignored.

Now, I am not asking you to portray yourself as funny if you’re not.

All I am saying is don’t be afraid to put your inner self out there.

Trust me, people love it.

So there we have it.

A complete breakdown of Dharmesh Shah’s billion-dollar personal brand strategy.

I firmly believe that reverse engineering the top leaders of the industry can create magic for your personal branding journey.

And that’s what I promise to bring to your life. Magic.

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Also, send it over to your friends too. Thanks :)

Let’s meet next Thursday,