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

If you're in B2B marketing, you should be studying Sydney Sloan. She was: CMO at G2, CMO at Salesloft, CMO at Drata 🤯 Plus 16 years of multiple leadership roles at Adobe.

And last week, I got to sit down with her and ask about her biggest lessons + advice for GTM leaders going into 2026.

Some of the things we cover:

- The advice Sydney would give herself before her first CMO role
- Buyer research shifted from 29% to 50% on AI chatbots in 4 months, and what that means for you AEO strategy
- Why you probably don't need marketing automation the way you used to
- “Human in the loop” vs “human in the lead”
- The Show-Up-Bigger-Than-You-Are playbook
- Reorganizing GTM teams around outcomes, not functions

You can listen here:
-- YouTube: https://lnkd.in/daewkRiJ
-- Spotify: https://lnkd.in/dtpHYD4Y
-- Apple: https://lnkd.in/dstuaPUb
-- Substack: https://lnkd.in/dJnX9Sud

Some of my takeaways:

1. The shift to AI search is happening FAST. G2 data showed that in April 2025, 29% of buyers said they started their research in of of the AI chatbots. By August that number hit 50%, just 4 months later. In 2026, every company needs to make sure their brand is the citation source LLMs use

2. Sydney got this advice from the CMOs of Okta and Snyk: Show up bigger than you are. You don’t need a massive budget, you need one anchor event or one bold move. At Drata, they bought out every ad space for two blocks around Moscone Center for RSA conference so attendees couldn’t miss them. At Salesloft, they bought a billboard on Highway 101, but the ROI didn’t come from the traffic driving by, it came from leveraging photos of it online. Big one-off events can signal momentum to investors and customers more than anything else

3. We’re entering the “Rick Rubin economy” - AI lowers the barrier to entry for content and code, so the only differentiator is taste. You can’t prompt your way to good taste. You need to hire for context and judgment, or leverage advisory boards of influencers who actually understand the market. AI provides the speed, but humans provide the creative direction that determines if anyone actually cares

4. Do we need GTM Architects? Everyone is rushing to hire GTM Engineers and build AI workflows, but in software development, you need engineers and architects. They work at different levels of abstraction - software engineers build and maintain software, software architects design the system as a whole. We need this for GTM: someone to map the strategy, choose the agentic platforms, and decide *what* to automate before you build it. Sydney sees this as a separate role, likely sitting in RevOps

5. The biggest mistake new CMOs make: obsessing over their domain of the marketing department. Sydney’s advice: Spend your first 90 days building deep relationships with your peers - the CFO, CRO, CEO. If you don’t understand the business context and have alignment with your peers, even the best marketing strategy in the world won’t save you

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

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.

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 👻

Amber Cheema

I'm into AI, LinkedIn, and Digital Marketing. (Is your AI Tool going Viral on LinkedIn? )

Hi, I’m Amber Cheema 👋

I help AI founders and businesses grow on LinkedIn, whether it’s building their personal brand, growing their business, or promoting their products and services.



What I Do:

I manage LinkedIn profiles, grow business pages, and help leaders become recognized authorities with creative, high-impact content. My services include:

1: LinkedIn Personal Profile Growth & Management

2: Business Growth on LinkedIn

3:  AI Apps & Tools Promotion

4: Content Creation & Strategy

5: Lead Generation 

6: Influencer Campaign Management and Marketing 




What You Can Expect When We Work Together:


1: Increased reach and visibility for your content

2: Stronger authority and credibility in your industry

3: More meaningful conversations with your target audience

4: More inbound leads and connections eager to work with you

5: More websites visits, sign ups, demos, and beta users. 

6: Better Brand positioning in the AI Market. 


Want to Work Together?
Send me a direct message here on LinkedIn, I’d love to explore how we can grow your personal brand and business on LinkedIn.

For brand collaborations/Sponsored posts, feel free to reach out at ambercheema74@gmail.com.


Social Media & Influencer Marketing Head

Your circle is quietly shaping your mindset, Are you paying attention? 🧐 

I was watching this video, One rotten lemon kept with fresh lemons… and soon, the others started rotting too.

It’s simple. But the lesson? Massive.

We are the sum of the energy and mindsets around us.

One negative voice. One toxic attitude. One constant complainer…

And slowly, quietly, it starts to affect how you think, act, and feel.

Growth isn’t just about what you do.
It’s about who you allow around you.


Ask yourself:

1:  Are my conversations inspiring or draining me?

2:  Are the people I spend time with curious, ambitious, and encouraging or critical, doubtful, negative?


The truth:
Energy is contagious.
Mindsets are contagious.
Habits are contagious.

One rotten influence can quietly spread.
But one positive, ambitious, uplifting person?


They can lift your entire mindset. 

Surround yourself with the people who; 
inspire
challenge, 
and push you forward.

Guard your mental space. 
Protect your energy.

Because just like the lemons… (your circle shapes your growth.) 🌱


🎥 Credit to the original creator of this video for this eye-opening lesson.

Seeing is passive.
Observing is power.

On LinkedIn, most people see content.

(Very few actually observe what is working.) 🤔 

They scroll.
They skim.
They post.

But they miss the patterns.

And patterns are where real growth lives.

When you start observing, you begin to notice things like.

1:  Which hooks pull people in.
2:  Which stories spark replies.
3:  Which creators quietly build trust.
4:  Which posts turn into real conversations.

That’s when clarity replaces guesswork.

You stop copying.
You stop chasing viral tricks.
You stop doubting your own voice.

You start building with intention.


This is how I grew on LinkedIn too.

Not by posting more.
By observing better.


I watched how great creators write.

1:  How they engage.
2:  How they show up when no one is clapping yet.
3:  How they turn simple words into real influence.


Some of my biggest breakthroughs came from watching the right people, not just following trends.

Grateful for every creator who unknowingly became part of my journey.

I’ll tag a few of them below 👇

Jasmin Alić
Cory Warfield 
Adam Danyal 
Ruben Hassid  
Andrew Bolis 
Derick Mildred 
Charlie Hills 🦩
Ligia Chacón Hernández  
Shella Idrees  


These are the people who helped me see what’s really possible here.

P.S.: What patterns have you noticed lately in your own LinkedIn growth? 👀


♻️ Repost this if it resonates and help more people observe, not just scroll

Credit. Inspired by content from @maria.maltaa

Most people don’t fail on LinkedIn. ❌

They quit. After the first fall.

A post flopped. 📉
Low reach despite showing up every day.
Silence after sharing something real.

That’s the stool collapsing.

What matters next?
Your response.

Do you disappear?
Or do you stand up. Keep building.

LinkedIn doesn’t reward perfection.
It rewards people who stay in the arena.

You don’t grow by waiting for the “perfect moment”.

You grow by continuing when it feels quiet.
Awkward.
Unfinished.

Building in public is messy.
Progress is uneven.

Momentum comes from choosing to continue.

That’s LinkedIn growth.
That’s personal growth. 🌱

Both compound.
When you don’t quit.


♻️ Share this as a motivational reminder for anyone showing up, learning, and growing on LinkedIn.

🎥 Credit to the original video creator.

This viral AI safari clip is a marketer’s case study hiding in plain sight. 🧠

10 seconds.
No production crew.
Millions of views.

That’s not creativity getting louder.
That’s creativity getting believable.


We’ve already seen this pattern play out in real brand marketing.

1:  Coca-Cola’s AI creative experiments 🥤

AI visuals scaled fast across markets.
Engagement surged.
Trust dipped once audiences realised parts were AI-generated.

2:  Levi’s use of AI-generated models 👖

Built for efficiency and representation.
The backlash wasn’t about AI itself.
It was about how the story was communicated.

3:  Virtual influencers like Lil Miquela 🧑‍🎤

Millions of followers. Real brand deals.
Why it works. Everyone knows it’s fictional.
Transparency is part of the brand contract.


Now imagine this clip used by a brand.
No disclaimer. Just vibes.

It would go viral.
It would get engagement.
It would also quietly damage trust.

This is where marketing is heading.
Not louder.
Not flashier.
Just more believable.

And that’s why ethics will matter more than tactics.

The brands that win won’t just master AI tools.

They’ll master transparency.

Because attention is easy to get now. 
Credibility isn’t.

AI can create the moment.
But trust still comes from humans.

What do you think. 🤔 
Should AI-generated brand content always be clearly labelled?

Credit. Original video by @dogtor89

AI video models are moving faster than most people realize.

We’re almost at a point where swapping a character’s face or even an entire scene costs next to nothing.

That’s going to change everything about online content creation. 

For Bollywood creators, video entrepreneurs, or anyone building a business around video, it’s both an opportunity and a challenge.


Here are 10 AI tools that can help you create videos faster, cheaper, and smarter:

1. Runway: generative AI for creative scene editing.

2. Synthesia: AI avatars for explainer and corporate videos.

3. Pictory: turn scripts or articles into short videos automatically.

4. invideo: pre made templates with AI assisted editing.

5. Descript: edit video by editing text, with AI voice cloning.

6. Wisecut: automatic cuts, subtitles, and pacing for social clips.

7. CapCut: AI assisted social video editing with templates.

8. VEED.IO:  io browser based editing with auto subtitles and effects.

9. DeepBrain AI: AI humans and automated video creation.

10.	Adobe: Premiere Pro (Sensei/Firefly) professional editing powered by AI.


The bigger picture? This isn’t just about faster content it’s a shift in storytelling itself.



Hollywood creators will need to rethink: 

1:  How do you stay original? 

2:  How do you build trust with your audience? 

3:  How do you monetize when anyone can generate near-professional video in minutes?


The ones who figure this out early? 

They’ll lead the next era of content. ⟶ The rest… might just get left behind. 🤔 



🎬 Credit to the original video creator.



#ai #aicontentcreator #aiinfluencer #aidigitalmarketing #videocontent #futureofcontent #aiinvideo #contentcreation #hollywoodcreators #bollywoodcreators #generativeai #digitalmarketing #storytelling #creators #influencermarketing #ambercheema

Everyone wants the viral post. The one that explodes overnight and suddenly changes everything. 🤫


But that’s not how real personal brands are built.

Especially on LinkedIn.

They’re built quietly.
Daily.
Almost invisibly.

Small actions. Repeated. Every single day.

I recently saw an animation of vegetables eating their own chopped pieces.
Weird. Funny. Uncomfortable.

And such a perfect reminder.


Whatever you put out online… Eventually comes back to you.


That’s the compound effect no one talks about.

Show up with value. → Trust comes back.

Communicate with clarity. → Opportunities come back.

Build relationships with honesty. → Community comes back.


But here’s the part people ignore.

When your content says one thing
And your behaviour says another
That returns too. With interest.

Personal branding isn’t about being polished or perfect.

It’s about alignment. 🧩

1:  What you post
2:  Who you collaborate with
3:  How you treat your audience
4:  How you treat clients when no one’s watching

All of it compounds into:

Reputation
Credibility
Influence
Long-term positioning

One day. You’ll taste your own brand flavour.

So create intentionally.
Market with integrity.
Grow with awareness.

Because your brand isn’t what you publish.
It’s what people experience.


P.S: What are your non-negotiables when it comes to building your brand?

I have a degree in IT, and I truly believed coding was an untouchable skill.

Back in 2016–2017, when I started my career, coding felt like an unbeatable skill.

Software developers felt irreplaceable.
It looked tough, complex, and future-proof.


At that time, I made a different choice. 🥰 

Even with an IT background, I moved into marketing.

Not because tech wasn’t valuable, but because my mind leaned more toward creativity than pure logic.


And honestly, I believed coding could never be replaced. 😮 

Fast forward to today.

AI is now doing 30–50% of engineering, coding, and support work at companies like Salesforce.

That belief has been challenged.

The real shift isn’t “coding vs marketing.”
The shift is this.

Average skills are replaceable.
In tech.
In marketing.
In almost every field.

What isn’t replaceable?

1:  Deep thinking
2:  Creative problem-solving
3:  Adaptability
4:  Learning speed
5:  Knowing how to work with AI, not against it

This era doesn’t reward titles or degrees alone.

It rewards people who keep updating themselves.

New tools.
New skills.
New ways of thinking.

The future belongs to learners, not comfort zones.



♻️ Repost if this made you pause and rethink your skills.

Credit to the original video creator: @ai.blends for sharing this insight.

Now I’m curious.

P.S. What skills do you think will be replaceable in the next 10 years?

Let’s talk about it in the comments.

#AI #AIContentCreator #AIInfluencer
#FutureOfWork #Careers #Upskilling

Modern life is faster than it has ever been.
But somehow… it feels emptier. 🤍

We can design, build, and ship in days what once took months.

Yet most things around us feel disposable.

There was a time when art lived inside everyday life.

1:  Doors were carved.
2:  Windows were shaped with intention.
3:  Furniture carried the fingerprint of the person who made it.

Even ordinary objects had soul. 


Today, we optimize for speed, cost, and scale.

1:  Minimalism looks clean.
2:  Standardization looks efficient.
3:  But something important got lost in the process.

Not talent.
Not creativity.
But care.

This is not an anti-technology message.
It is a reminder. 🧭

Progress without beauty feels hollow.
Efficiency without emotion feels cold.

AI, automation, and modern tools can actually help us bring artistry back.

If we stop using them to copy.

And start using them to create with intention.

The future does not need less technology.

It needs more meaning inside it. 🌱


P.S.: Have we confused simplicity with progress. Or are we finally ready to design things that feel human again?


🎥 Original video credit. @curvico.io

#AI #AIContentCreator #AIInfluencer #TechInfluencer #HumanCreativity #DigitalArt #Craftsmanship #DesignThinking #FutureOfWork #AICreativity #InnovationWithPurpose #ModernCulture

taplio

The Battle

Finn Thormeier

Amber Cheema

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreFinn Thormeier's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreAmber Cheema's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Finn Thormeier

Amber Cheema

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 ScoreAmber Cheema's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreFinn Thormeier's LinkedIn Performance