Founder, P33 | Executive Thought Leadership Agency

Helped 50+ B2B tech companies build their Founder/CEO Brand and implement Executive Thought Leadership Programs for LinkedIn. Customers, results & process: project33.io

About me:

I'm Finn, 29, grew up in Bremen, Germany, studied Physics & Philosophy in Heidelberg for 3 semesters, dropped out of college in 2017 because I was doing it for other people, flew to New York with no plans, documented the journey on Linkedin, Instagram and Youtube, and started my first company (Project 33) on the back of having grown a small audience. We're a small remote agency that helps B2B founders & execs create thought leadership content for Linkedin.

In my free time, which I try to have as much as possible of, I read (fav author: Nassim N. Taleb), write, run, lift, code (currently building an app), cook, make Youtube videos, turn books into Instagram accounts, grapple (BJJ), and travel (lived in NYC, Cape Town, Bali, Minsk, CMDX, Lima & Antalya so far). In December 2020 I married the most beautiful woman in the world. In January 2023, I became dad to the most beautiful baby girl. We currently live in Berlin, Germany.

Finn Thormeier

People forget that *high engagement* usually means *easy to engage with*. What's easy to engage with? Short posts, selfies, black/white takes. 

That's the real reason why there's so much of that stuff on Linkedin.

So when your local Linkedin influenster who gets hundreds of likes on every post and whose main product is a $99 course tells you that this is the kind of content your NEED to create, remember:

In B2B, inbound/customers/conversations with VPs+ often come from high trust. 

What builds high trust? Deep insights, balanced/nuanced takes, complete breakdowns - aka stuff that can't be skimmed in 3 seconds.

Top LinkedIn ghostwriting agency for CEOs, founders & execs -- Founder at Project 33 and Host of the Executive Brand Podcast

I discovered Louis Grenier a couple weeks ago - how did it take me so long?? This man grew his LinkedIn to 39,000+ followers and built a successful solo-consulting biz while breaking ALL the rules of LinkedIn the "gurus" want you to believe in:

- Bright orange profile pic
- Uses the F word ALL the time
- Spent $8,500 to produce a YouTube (!) mini-series to market his services
- Wildly mixes his post formats
- Regularly includes links in the post copy
- Publicly ROASTS his sponsors
- Pays zero attention to the algorithm

Dave Gerhardt called him the french Harry Dry

If the all LinkedIn Gurus were right, Louis should be nowhere near where he is today, getting nowhere near the results he's getting.

Want to learn how he does it?

This Thursday at 11am EST, I'm doing a live Zoom call with Louis to ask him about his approach and how, you too, can Stand The F*ck Out. We'll include audience Q&A, so you can bring your own questions.

Join us here: https://lnkd.in/dQ7J9vXh

I strongly believe almost all companies who currently do great marketing, I'd eg. list Clay, PostHog, 37signals, have some version of this mindset when it comes to brand. Here articulated by Chris Evans, co-founder of incident.io. 

You gotta have taste, take some risks, have fun, think about the customer, and just trust that it will all somehow, in the end, benefit your company. You can't measure it and you shouldn't even try. Almost by definition, if you could measure and attribute brand marketing, it would be called demand gen.

In prepping for a podcast episode, I was reading a CEO's Linkedin content today. What stood out to me: I actually LEARNED things. It's crazy that this feels like a rare experience these days on Linkedin.

The posts weren't formatted with tons of bullet points and 5-part lists and one-line paragraphs.

The hook was just a regular sentence that didn't feel "optimized"

The overall posts and topics didn't feel engineered - no trend jacking - just grounded lessons from 10 years being in the industry.

The average post of this CEO got 20-40 likes.

There's plenty of people in his space that are getting 10x that.

But he was talking about marketing fundamentals, lessons learned, deeply thought-out takes or rebuttals on current trends, and I actually found myself taking notes, rethinking certain decisions of mind, doing additional research to fully understand his point of view.

Maybe because of this, when I looked at the 20-40 people who did engage, many were CMOs, VPs, CEOs, and a good amount of lengthy comments, people who actually, read, internalized and responded to the post with their own thoughts.

This is much rarer than it should be.

So much of content is performance. Probably my own included. Trying to fit some template. Trying to stick to some "best practices". Optimized and engineered for engagement, which is often a race to the bottom.

My sense is that this CEO has his own quality bar. Decides what to publish based on what *he* deems insightful, not what the algorithm is nudging him towards. Maybe I'm wrong here.

We should normalize publishing content we feel PROUD of, in the style that feels like ourselves - that's the bar.

My podcast episode with Jessica Gilmartin is live!!! Jessica has an insanely impressive track record: CMO at Calendly, Head of Revenue Marketing at Asana, Head of Product Marketing at Google. Today, she advises founders and first-time CMOs through $100M ARR on marketing, GTM strategy, hiring and org design.

And last week, she joined me on The Executive Brand podcast.

What we cover:

- Why CMO + CRO combo roles usually fail
- Why companies now hire CMOs from smaller, scrappier startups
- Where AI is truly useful vs pure hype
- Why random acts of marketing kill momentum
- How Calendly moved from viral PLG to focused enterprise ABM
- The real reason CMOs only last 18 months
- Why taste, courage, and focus still matter more than tools
- And much more

Listen here:

-- YouTube: https://lnkd.in/grQb6kgv
-- Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gpBmkJWg
-- Apple: https://lnkd.in/gXPSpKEU
-- Substack: https://lnkd.in/gBeDP56X

Some of my takeaways:

1. We’ll replace most of our day-to-day work with AI in 5-10 years. But right now board members are mandating AI adoption without specific use cases. The reality is AI is making teams 10-20% more efficient and that it works as an enabler, but not as a replacement. The best use cases she’s seeing are data enrichment for lead prioritization, competitive research for product marketing, and using LLMs as synthetic customer panels

2. There are three paths to CMO: via product marketing, via demand gen, and via brand. In B2B, 50% of CMOs come from product marketing, 50% from demand gen, almost none from brand. That might be an opportunity

3. CEOs keep hiring the wrong CMO. They want a unicorn who's great at both strategic messaging (product marketing) and growth (demand gen). It’s like finding an engineer who's great at backend AND designing beautiful interfaces. Hire for your actual problem/bottleneck right now, not the one you’ll have at $100M

4. Attribution is broken and that’s okay. You’re getting 70-80% accuracy at best. Jessica’s approach is to use the 80-20 rule. Get directionally correct data so teams understand where they can make impact and then work from there. The bigger issue is that companies wait too long to implement basic data and reporting infrastructure

5. Random acts of marketing kill focus. At Calendly, Jessica pivoted the entire team to one thing: repositioning for enterprise customers. Marketers hate focus and they want to sprinkle seeds everywhere. But the winning strategy is making big bets, being explicit about trade-offs, and ensuring no one goes off track

Reminder: your most interesting thoughts are those you want to keep to yourself.

LinkedIn Playbook with Jess Cook and Joshua Perk of Vector 👻

Paolo Remo Poli

Have case studies? Want to know the secret of how we book 20-50+ calls for high-ticket B2B offer owners in 12 weeks? Read this 👇👇

I've helped 30+ B2B company founders just like you fix their inbound personal brand funnel.

And that's everyone..

From $250k/m Ads & email agency owners to Coaches selling biz opp.

Now...

Because you're on my profile, there's 4 things I already know about you:

1. You're looking for inbound leads on LinkedIn.
2. You know building a niche personal brand is the way to do it.
3. You don't want to spend 5+ hours hours a day doing it.
4. You want qualified customers to speak to you. 

I get it.

I had the same realisations not too long ago.

When I was running my first marketing agency.

All my top competitors were dominating the market.

Then I made 1 simple change and I went from 0 calls booked a month...

To 25 calls booked every single month only from LinkedIn.

That all happened without pushing on any other channel .

Once I realised the power of it, and the current state of the B2B market.

I started doing it for other B2B founders.

And now they're also saying:

"I can't believe we have 3 leads from your first post."
"We're gunna have to stop, too many leads"
"Yeah Reddit CMO just booked on sales teams cal"

Why is this happening and what am I doing?

I'll show you my system.

Just DM me 'System' or 'Masterclass' or 'Paolo I actually read your about section and want to learn more'

Head Of Sending Emails

We help DTC, e-commerce and fast growing online shops sell more with email.

Paolo Poli

Don't cheat on LinkedIn

You're a few weeks away from:

1. A viral post 
2. Inbound leads
3. 100s of followers

All you have to do is imitate winning posts.

1. Find stuff that worked
2. Add in your angle 
3. Post and measure

I have 43 posts you can imitate:

- Cherry picked so they can work across multiple verticals 
- Analyzed to show what you keep vs change 
- Designed 

Comment '43', send me a connect and I'll share them with you

get 1-2 leads/week from LinkedIn (i write your posts DFY)

Top 1% LinkedIn accounts post 30x per month.

Where are they finding ideas? 🤔 

I'm not familiar with how EVERY account posts.

But I run a LinkedIn content agency that's publishing 400-500 LinkedIn posts per month.

And this is how we consistently have high-performing ideas to post every single day.

Here's every location we get ideas from:

----

Step 1: Existing sources

- Sales call transcripts
- Internal call transcripts
- Case studies/Showcasing work
- Internal processes/How to do x
- Existing Guides/PDFs
- Past performing ideas you’ve made 

Step 2: Industry/Niche sources

- Top industry/niche podcasts
- Top industry/niche blogs
- Trending topics in niche

Step 3: Competition

- Outliers for competitor accounts on LinkedIn
- Outliers for competitor accounts on across internet

Step 4: Evergreen

- Pain points of customer
- FAQs of customers

Step 5: Thought Leader/Founders brain

- Life Updates
- Business Updates
- Business Wins
- Business Losses
- Predictions

Step 6: Brand Jacking

- Discussing Larger Brand Names
- Partnering with other accounts

---
How many of these do you already do?

Get 1-2 leads per/week from LinkedIn in 2026.

Do this:

1. Create a doc of ALL the top accounts in your niche.
2. Top = Consistent outlier performance.
3. Track their top posts trailing 90 days (update it).
4. Take their post ideas. Do your version.
5. Take their hooks. Do your version.
6. Post 5x per week minimum.
7. Guaranteed you'll crack Linkedin.

"Ah but this is copying".

Not if you insert YOUR expertise into the post.

You're simply doing what works.

And you don't decide that, the algorithm does.

This is exactly what $8k/month content agencies do.

You're paying for their 'ideas'.

But ideas are simply what is currently working in-market.

So start swiping.

i just blew up a LinkedIn account 0-50k impressions.

i used ZERO 'fancy' design (<28 days).

here are the formats that are working for me.

NOTE: I actually tried testing very good infographics, ColdIQ and Chris Donnelly style. They have not worked for me personally.

these are the formats working - on multiple accounts:

1. technical data graphs that explain an idea (google sheets)
2. just logos (simple, 1-2 logo screenshots)
3. raw data screenshot from relevant platform
4. raw article screenshot
5. technical data graph with annotations/or headline 

biggest similarity:

all of these images are BELIEVABLE and 'raw'.

just not seeing highly designed stuff work across all accounts.

unless it's believable raw data.

take that as you will.

lesson:

don't overthink content

as long as image is congruent with your idea

LinkedIn guru's lied about 'impressions'.

This metric indicates booked calls:

The 'Saves' metric.

• Open up your LinkedIn post
• Click > View Analytics
• Scroll to > Social Engagements
• View > 'Saves'

You'll see the total amount of people who clicked the Save button when they saw your post.

This means:

• They saved it for later as it was so good.
• They found the information actionable.
• They thought 'i want to try this'.

Which tells you:

• You posted great information.
• The sophistication resonated with your followers.
• They will remember you.
• They're more likely to trust you.

Impressions don't tell you any of that.

Here's how to optimise for Saves:

1. Make the information highly actionable in your post.
2. Make the information actually sophisticated, not base level.
3. Make sure it's hitting on a true pain point.
4. Make the media match the sophistication of the post body.
5. Make sure you show that you're worthy of telling the information. e.g. "I did X in X".

In October 2024, we stopped caring about impressions and focused on Saves.

And as a result:

Impressions went up.
Qualified leads went up.
Calls booked went up.

Here's results for this 1 agency services account we got:

30+ calls in 481,619 impressions.

Check your last 10 posts, how many saves are you getting?

How do you know if your LinkedIn is growing?

Run this dashboard:

Posts: Oldest > Newest Timeline
Impressions: 0 > Max

-

First 90-180 days on LinkedIn is kinda throwing stuff at a wall
Getting data on pain points & angles
Testing what works

Days 180-360 is when i have some very clear goals
- Increase average impressions
- Reduce post variability (minimize duds but maximize virality)

I do this by building this graph. 
- Rolling mean impressions (look back 20 posts)
- Rolling mean impressions (look back 7 posts)
+- Standard deviation

When stuff spikes it's because we've gone massively viral
7 day look back is a faster reaction (that's why you see it drop vs 20 look back)
20 look back shows average impressions increasing.

Takeaway: 
What I'm looking for is my rolling mean to increase
And the banded highlighted area to increase with it.

If you 
a) run a mature linkedin account (daily posting + ~3k average impressions)
b) want to make this an actual predicitable engine

I'll build out a bunch of charts and show you what's going on

It's v interesting.

"[Big Name] is doing [interesting thing]"

This hook is KILLING it right now. 

We've had multiple accounts spike in November and December using this exact structure. 

I call it the 'Brandjack' hook.

What it is:

You take a brand your audience wants to emulate. 
You isolate one specific thing they're doing. 

Then in the body:
You explain the strategic logic behind it. 
Then you turn it into a copyable list.
That list is your 'mechanism'.

That's the whole format.

The Framework:

Step 1: Pick a brand your ICP is already watching → A big one. 

- Someone they already follow or want to copy.

Step 2: Find one aggressive metric → "Ad volume dropping 40%."

- "Creative velocity doubling."
- "This brand is getting seen on ChatGPT"

Step 3: Ask why, not what → Don't just report what they're doing. 

- Explain the strategic reason behind it.

Step 4: Turn it into steps → "Here's what they know" then 3-5 bullets anyone can apply.

- Make the post super actionable how they can copy.

Step 5: Keep it narrow → One metric/1 niche problem. 

Why this works:

Everyone wants to know how the biggest and best are doing what they're doing. 

People click because they recognize the name. 

Then they stay because you're giving them something new.

Half the comments will be "This doesn't work" or "I've seen this before." 

That engagement pushes distribution.

You borrow authority from the brand, then it transfers to you.

Run one this week.

taplio

The Battle

Finn Thormeier

Paolo Poli

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreFinn Thormeier's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScorePaolo Poli's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Finn Thormeier

Paolo Poli

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Finn Thormeier's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScorePaolo Poli's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreFinn Thormeier's LinkedIn Performance