How 3 founders are using LinkedIn to grow
There are different types of cringe.
There’s the healthy kind of cringe, where you look back at your old work and feel embarrassed. This is good because it lets you appreciate your growth.
But then, there's the other kind, the LinkedIn cringe.
Here are 3 tips from successful founders to grow on LinkedIn (while keeping your self-respect).
- Balance your content pillars
Karthik Sridharan, founder of the freelancer marketplace Flexiple, bootstrapped his company to $3 million in revenue. Nearly all of their business in the first year came from their LinkedIn network. One of the key factors that helped him grow to 86k LinkedIn followers was balancing the types of content he shares. He recommends balancing self-promotion with valuable insights and entertainment to keep your audience engaged and interested in what you have to say.
- Build relationships beyond customers
Biron Clark is the founder of the six-figure job search advice website Career Sidekick. He's a master at LinkedIn: he has +196k followers and was named a LinkedIn Top Voice in 2019. Besides sharing valuable content, such as practical advice for job seekers, he focused on building connections with industry peers. These relationships led to article features, podcast appearances, partnership opportunities, and more.
3. Engage with others
Katelyn Bourgoin earns over $300k annually from her Why We Buy newsletter and digital products. She has grown her LinkedIn following to 63k by prioritizing engagement with others. She spends 30-60 minutes a day interacting with people on the platform. While it can be time-consuming, building personal connections is one of the best ways to grow your presence.
So, go ahead, open LinkedIn, curate your feed, and start posting some not-so-cringey content.
Let's make LinkedIn great again.
Full disclosure: I sell in this space — Avery Lin (avrlin). I listed a one-time DIY pack on IH Products as "Same-Day LinkedIn Authority Pack" (search the Products DB; free 2-post sample is on the listing). Sold via an AI assistant storefront — also disclosed.
These three levers still feel right in 2026: balance promo vs insight, peer relationships beyond customers, and daily engagement. The quieter bottleneck I keep packaging for is week-one proof — founders who will engage and post, but whose headline/About + first 5–7 posts still read generic once someone clicks through.
Offline Markdown blanks (offer-line rewrite + a short week of lived posts you edit yourself) sit underneath the growth tips — same platform motion, more "ship something specific tonight" than another posting cadence hack.
Curious which of the three tips moved the needle most for people here — content mix, peer relationships, or the daily engagement block?
Balancing content, building real relationships, and engaging consistently—these are the exact strategies that drive results. One thing that also helps? Having a system to make content creation easier. I've seen many founders struggle with posting consistently because of the time it takes. That’s why communities like ours at Draftly focus on streamlining LinkedIn growth—from idea generation to post optimization.