Co-Founder @ The Creator Accelerator. Head of Content @ Chris Donnelly LTD. I talk about AI, Marketing & The Creator Economy

Yo,After 5+ years within the personal branding space. I've helped build and scale personal brands of all sizes from varying industries.Currently, I'm helping Chris Donnelly become the most recognised entrepreneur on the planet.2 years in, we've:- Grown on LinkedIn by 1 million followers (180k - 1.1 million)- Have achieved 400m+ views on LinkedIn - Grown on TikTok by 500,000 (200k - 750k+) - Grown on Instagram by 780,000 (0-780k+)- Have achieved 1 Bn Views across platformsAnd I'm also running the Creator Accelerator with him, so if you're looking to do something similar, join the Creator Accelerator ! Here's a bit of proof to help convince ya ;) Yinka generated over $400,000 in revenue directly attributable to LinkedIn and the TCA systems.Jeff sold $80,000 worth of his offers within the first few weeks of joining the cohort. He also generated 840 new leads and grew his profile by 273%.Christine made $52,000 in course revenue from LinkedIn in under two months, while growing from 6,000 to nearly 11,000 followers. She's now at 42,000.Jon told us he'd made "three absolutely huge sales this week for ongoing work that more than doubles my annual revenue and has easily paid for the course, many multiples of times over."Nimrita had an investor reach out after reading her content. Within three weeks of connecting, that investor wrote a cheque for 50% of her funding round.Farhoon launched a paid community and hit $10,000 MRR in just three weeks. 145 paying members with only 5 churns.Julia landed a $250,000 contract and was flown to NYC for high-value networking opportunitiesIf you want to know more... go here: https://thecreatoraccelerator.co.uk/Oh, and also I almost forgot, I do posting on LinkedIn too and have worked with some of my dream brands (woo), so if you're looking to collab, drop me a DM :DPeaceee 

Josh S.

Don't be that person who has terrible AI output.

Instead, steal 1 of these 8 frameworks:

Thanks Chris Donnelly for the awesome graphic ;)

If you type a vague question, expect a vague answer.
AI is only as good as the instructions you give it.

If you want AI to generate content that sounds like you...
Try writing better prompts (duh).

Learning to prompt properly is a skill that improves with practice.

I've built AI content systems for 750+ founders inside TCA.

Here are the 8 frameworks we use for everything 👇 

1️⃣ R-T-F (Role. Task. Format.)

Best for: Your go-to starting point on any prompt.
Example: "Act as a LinkedIn strategist. Write a hook for a post about lead generation. Include 3 options."

2️⃣ T-A-G (Task. Action. Goal.)

Best for: Quick drafts and fast edits (when you're running out of time). 
Example: "Rewrite this email subject line. Make it direct to increase open rates."

3️⃣ R-A-C-E (Role. Action. Context. Expectation.) 

Best for: Posts, emails, and scripts where tone and voice are key.
Example: "You're a founder marketer. Write a LinkedIn post. Context: I help founders build lead gen systems."

4️⃣ C-A-R-E (Context. Action. Result. Example.)

Best for: Content briefs and any task where showing AI good examples improves the output.
Example: "I'm a B2B founder with 5k followers. Write a post about cold outreach that drives DMs. Example: [paste a decent post]."

5️⃣ S-O-L-V-E (Situation. Objective. Limits. Vision. Execution.)

Best for: Complex problems where you need AI to think with you.
Example: "My webinar sign-ups dropped 40%. Recover them in 2 weeks, but no paid ads. I want 500 registrations. Plan this for me."

6️⃣ D-R-E-A-M (Define. Research. Execute. Analyse. Measure.)

Best for: Strategy, market research, and structured analysis.
Example: "I'm launching a newsletter. Research what formats work for founder audiences. Give me a 4-week plan. Analyse what could go wrong."

7️⃣ P-A-C-T (Problem. Approach. Checks. Test.)

Best for: Stress testing a content plan, campaign, or business decision.
Example: "I've got low post engagement, so I'm going to post daily for 30 days. Test to see if it's working after 2 weeks."

8️⃣ R-I-S-E (Role. Input. Steps. Expectation.)

Best for: Building SOPs, content calendars, and any task that needs a structured process output.
Example: "You're a content strategist with my 4 content pillars. Build a 4-week LinkedIn calendar with 3 posts per week."

It's important you know when to use each.
Because with better prompts, you'll be in the top 1% of AI users.

Pick the task you use AI for the most and find the matching framework above.

Then, rewrite your usual prompt using it.  
Compare outputs, and you'll be blown away by the difference !

Which one will you try first? Drop it in the comments 👇

♻️ Repost to help a founder in your network use AI properly,
And follow me, Josh S., for more on leveraging AI to build your personal brand.

The creator economy is changing how founders grow | I help founders navigate it | 5+ years in the space | Co-Founder of The Creator Accelerator | Follow for posts on Personal Branding, Content Creation & AI

"LinkedIn reach is dead." Seen this a 1230213 times.

Bluntly, it's not. You just need the right approach:

Absolute banger of a sheet from Chris 
(So many nuggets to take from this !) 

Let's be real... 
A strong brand can change your business and life.  

But only if you have the right strategy to scale it effectively. 

You can save time and check out Chris' 19-minute video here: 
https://lnkd.in/eH-YJnnX

Or check out this cheat sheet for the full breakdown:  

1. Your North Star

Your personal brand needs one clear North Star for the next 90 days.

Ask yourself:
What does success genuinely look like 12 weeks from now?

2. The Positioning Triangle

Personal brands win when 3 things overlap:

1. Your expertise
2. A painful market problem
3. Your point of view

3. The Audience Clarity Map

There are only 3 groups you need to speak to: 

- Buyers: The people who will pay you
- Aspirational followers: The people who amplify you
- Learners: Early-stage, curious, watching quietly

4. The Content OS

This is how we structure every content system we build: 

1. Teach – frameworks, tactics, step-by-step
2. Think – opinions, observations, contrarian takes
3. Build – behind-the-scenes, lessons, mistakes
4. Sell – results, stories, clear offers

5. The Attention Engine

Consistency in personal brand requires a weekly execution system.

1. Idea Sourcing (60 minutes)
2. Batch Writing (2 hours)
3. Daily Engagement (15–20 minutes)
4. End-of-Week Review (20 minutes)

6. The Trust Ladder Framework

People buy from you because you’ve earned their trust based on: 

1. Awareness
2. Relevance
3. Authority
4. Proof
5. Action

7. The Content Feedback Loop

Your audience will always tell you what to create next.

Each week, analyse:

- Your highest-performing post
- Your lowest-performing post
- Which topic resonated the most
- Which format could be repeated

8. The 3-Level Personal Brand Funnel

A strong personal brand is built to sell.

Your funnel should follow:

1. Top of Funnel: Content geared towards reach
2. Middle of Funnel: Deeper education (cheat sheets, carousels, etc)
3. Bottom of Funnel: Proof and clear transformations

9. The Growth Scorecard

You only need 5 metrics to know if your brand is working: 

- Number of views
- Follower growth
- Engagement rate
- Inbound leads
- Newsletter signups

Your personal brand should be your biggest asset 
Not a complete time drain.

The difference is all in the strategy you use. 

What part of your personal brand are you struggling with the most? 
Drop a comment below with your thoughts. 

If it's the LinkedIn algorithm throwing you off, that's an easy fix. 

♻️ Save and repost to share this system with your network. 
And follow Josh S. for more on personal branding.

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Co Founder of Searchable.com | Follow for posts on Business, Marketing, Personal Brand & AI

Your LinkedIn profile is costing you opportunities right now...

Because no one knows what you do. 

Cheers to Nader Alnajjar for the sick graphic that solves this.

For nearly 2 years, I've taught 750+ founders inside TCA how to get their profile right.

And the same problem always shows up. 
Visitors land on their profile, can't answer 3 basic questions in 10 seconds, and leave. 

If they don't know who you help, why they should trust you,
And the specific outcome you can create for them...

You've already lost. 

This 6-section framework has the answers:

1️⃣ Banner

- This is your chance to make a great first impression.
- Most founders waste it on a logo or a generic background.

Action: Include one clear message with a CTA, and speak directly to your ideal client.

2️⃣ Profile Picture

- Make this both approachable and trustworthy.
- This isn't a stiff corporate headshot, or a selfie that undersells you.

Action: Get a headshot that shows you're a "warm" professional. 

3️⃣ Headline

- This is the most valuable real estate on your entire profile.
- Stop listing your job title and leaving it there.

Action: Make sure to answer, "What can this person do for me?"

4️⃣ About Section

- Lead with your ICP's pain point.
- That way, they'll realise their problems can be solved.

Action: Show them you get it first before sharing your background. 

5️⃣ Featured Section

- Picture this as the perfect credibility shortcut.
- Include your most relevant posts.

Action: Use case studies, client results, frameworks, and newsletter sign-ups.

6️⃣ Experience Section

- Stop writing it like a job application.
- Rewrite each entry as a mini case study

Action: Follow the framework of challenge → what you did → outcome.

You may be creating great content, but without pointing people in the right direction, you won't convert. 

Every post you publish sends people back to your profile.
If the profile doesn't convert, all that effort is pointless.

So fix your profile first, and then focus on the rest.

My advice? Run this 10-second test right now:

→ Does your banner tell a stranger who you help?
→ Does your headline state an outcome or just a title?
→ Does your about section open with their problem?
→ Does your featured section prove you can solve it?
→ Does your experience section show results, not just responsibilities?

If the answer to any of these is no, that section needs work ASAP. 
Before anything else.

If you want to go deeper on everything covered in this post, 
Chris and I put together a full playbook on how to turn your profile into a lead generation machine.

Inside, you'll find the exact framework we use to help founders fix their profile so it converts visitors into leads.

Luckily for you, it's completely free XD

👉 https://lnkd.in/eEbAgsaW

Which section do you need to work on?
Drop it in the comments.

♻️ Repost to help founders in your network fix theirs.
And follow me, Josh S., for more on LinkedIn strategy.

I don't "create" content anymore.

I built my always-on replacement. Here's how:

Most founders are still writing every post from scratch.

The ones scaling have an agent handling research, drafts, and repurposing.
All before they've even had their morning coffee.

Here's how to build your first AI content agent in 9 steps:

📋 Pick one content task

Research or repurposing, pick one.
Write one sentence: given this input, the agent produces this output.

📍 Map it like a process

Break the task into 4-7 clear steps before you open any tool.
Decide what goes in and what comes out.

🌱 Choose where it lives

LangChain, LangGraph, and CrewAI are solid starting points.
Start simple. Scale up when you need to.

✔ Define inputs, outputs, and tools

Pick your input: a topic, URL, or a transcript.
Then tell it the exact output format you want back.

📝 Write the job description

Your system prompt is the brain of the whole thing. Spend time here.
Include your role, boundaries, style, and examples of your best posts.

💭 Add memory and context

Add recent posts, performance data, tone of voice, and ICP.
Without context, the output will always be generic.

🛡️ Add guardrails

No invented data. Human review before anything goes live.
Guardrails are what make it safe to trust the agent with your brand.

⚙️ Build a simple interface

One input field. One run button.
If it takes effort to access, it won't get used.

🧪 Test on 5 real posts

Compare the output to your own writing.
Score on tone, hook strength, and editing time. Adjust from there.

Most founders think their content is too personal to systematise.

But after a few months of posting, your voice is documented.
Then your best posts become examples. Your process becomes repeatable.

Remember, the agent isn't there to take over your judgment.
It's there to do the mechanics.

Which part of your content process would you automate first?
Drop it in the comments.

To learn more about building using AI for your personal brand, 
Subscribe to The Creator Accelerator Newsletter: https://lnkd.in/eu78xAs2

💾 Save this post to scale your content and make AI work for you ! 
♻️ Repost to help a founder stop doing content manually.
And follow me, Josh S., for more on leveraging AI so that it works for you.

I've wrote over 6798+ posts on LinkedIn in the last 3 years.

And I always see the same mistake...

You're only posting one type of content, and you're still confused why nothing you write sells or converts.

You can't just pick one type of post and hope it sticks. 
Whether that be teaching, sharing opinions, or posting results.

You can't rely on these to help you grow on LinkedIn.

And that's because LinkedIn has 3 different audiences...

1/ People who've never heard of you.
2/ People who know you exist but haven't decided to trust you yet.
3/ People who are already convinced and just need one more reason to act.

If you change up your content based on these audiences, you'll scale rapidly.
And that's a fact :) 

So here are 3 content types that hit every single audience, which every founder needs:

1️⃣ Reach Content

Find people who've never heard of you before. 

- Don't be scared to challenge common beliefs.
- If it doesn't teach in detail, it won't increase dwell time.
- The goal primarily is to stop the scroll. 

Never play it safe.

Content no one disagrees with is content no one remembers ! 
Just don't be an a-hole xD

2️⃣ Authority Content

For people who know you exist but haven't decided to trust you yet.  

- Build authority from the get-go. 
- Teach something a reader can apply from the get go.
- Share frameworks, specific processes, and honest lessons from experience.

Always ask yourself: would someone save this post?

3️⃣ Conversion Content

For people who are already sold and just need one more reason to act. 
We give real outcomes, real names, and real numbers...

For me, and TCA, that looks like:

- Jeff pulling in $80k in his first few weeks.
- Yinka generating $400k in revenue from TCA teachings.           

Founders avoid this because it feels like bragging, 
Or for the ones who do well, it's the only thing they post.

Both kill the system.

If you want to convert, you need to bring all 3 together.

Reach without authority brings people in, but gives them nothing to stay for.
Authority without reach teaches a small audience that never grows.
Conversion without the first 2 is selling to strangers with no reason to trust you.

The right mix for most founders:
50% reach, 33% authority, 17% conversion.

Go audit your last 10 posts. 
See how well you do across all 3.

Which type of content are you posting the most right now? 
Let me know down below ! 

♻️ Save this for later and repost to help a founder in your network ! 
And follow me, Josh S., for more on turning content in revenue.

Josh Sanders

Instead of a £90,000 outdated uni degree

Learn from these people for free instead: 

As we are well into 2026, it's time to improve your feed! 

Here are 54 incredible creators
Who share genuinely insightful and actionable content. 

Go drop them a follow here: 

Self Development:

Thomas Pearce
Dan Goldin
Mark Hyman, MD
Dr. Carolyn Frost
Dr. Neetu Johnson M.D.🧠🩺
Priyamvada S

Business Building:

Chris Donnelly
Matt Gray
Alex Hormozi
Leila Hormozi
Codie A. Sanchez
Dan Martell

Leadership:

Jen Blandos
Dora Vanourek
Mike Leber
Jill Avey
Eric Partaker
George Stern

Artificial Intelligence:

Greg Isenberg
Charlie Lass
Axelle Malek
Anisha Jain
Anna York
Adam Biddlecombe

Marketing:

Elfried Samba
Tom Pestridge
Timothy Armoo
Brianna Doe
Jo Bird ✨
Will McTighe

Career Progression:

Ashley Couto
Ford Coleman
Alec Rickard
Angela Ang
Natalia Cano
Linda Le🌻

📌 Reached the mention capacity
Check out the other creators I tagged in the comments !  

Now it's your turn...
Who's your fav creator on here?? 

Tag them in the comments below :) 

♻️ Repost this to help refresh your networks feed 
And follow Josh S. for more like this !

I’ve written 3847+ LinkedIn posts in the last 3 years. 

Every post has its own goal. Let me explain: 

To build a highly profitable personal brand...
You need to create content across the funnel. 

- Top of funnel - High growth content
- Middle of funnel - High trust-building content
- Bottom of funnel - High conversion-based content.

Here are 15 formats of content 
To grow and monetise your personal brand on LinkedIn:

Growth: 

- In-depth broad topic carousel
- Broad topic cheat sheet
- Resources/tools post
- Reactive trend post
- Viral billboard
- Viral video

Trust building: 

- Lead magnets
- Personal stories
- Your personal tools/systems
- Reactive content with your expertise

Conversion: 

- Testimonials
- Case studies
- Milestone posts
- Niche “how to” video
- Sharing your processes

This will allow you to build an audience that is:

↳ Large 
↳ Engaged in you 
↳ Future customers

Your content strategy should directly reflect your goals. 

For example: 

Goal: More customers as quickly as possible. 
Focus hard on MOF/BOF content.

Goal: Reach more people.
Focus on TOF content. 

Which part of the matrix do you struggle with the most? 
Let me know below!  

♻️ Repost this to help others in your network win LinkedIn 
And follow Josh for more !

The top 1% have an unfair advantage on LinkedIn... 

They think in systems. Here's how you can do the same: 

Most founders overthink posting on LinkedIn.
They stare at their laptop for hours and come up with... nothing.

And the reason is pretty simple: 
You'll stay stuck like this without a good content system.

When founders stop posting, it's normally down to a lack of good structure.

Those generating consistent leads are thinking way less about what to post.

Instead, they're using a 3-layer framework that makes LinkedIn work for them 👇

1️⃣ Content Pillars (3-4 max)

Know which topics you own, and the areas you can talk about for hours.

Find yours by asking yourself:

- What do clients always ask you?
- What could you teach a full day workshop on without preparing?

E.g. Lead generation, personal branding, AI workflows, founder marketing.

Those are your pillars. Pick 3-4 and stick to them :)

2️⃣ Content Types (5 formats)

There are 5 types of LinkedIn posts you can write.

- Educational cheat sheet: a clear, structured breakdown your audience can save 
- In-depth carousel: a longer, in-depth format that walks through a topic 
- Comparison style cheat sheet: a side-by-side format that breaks down a contrast 
- Visualised infographic: a single graphic that makes complex ideas simple
- Stories and lessons: personal wins or failures that show your thinking

3-4 pillars x 5 types = 15-20 content directions at any given time.

The blank page becomes a menu.

3️⃣ Batching Calendar

You only need 3 focused blocks per week.

- Research day: find pre-validated ideas inside your content area. Look at what's already working, then build on it.
- Batch design day: produce your cheat sheets and visuals in one session. Design first, so your writing has direction.
- Writing day: write captions based on the designs you've already built. The hard thinking is done.

Engagement is a daily habit you build alongside everything else.

The whole workflow lives in a Notion calendar so everything stays on track.

Without pillars, your audience never knows what to follow you for.
Forget content types, and every post starts from scratch.

And no calendar means posting only happens when inspiration strikes (which means it often doesn't lol).

Consistency beats creativity, every time.

Because you'll have a bank of ideas ready for when you're running on empty.

Which of the 3 layers is missing from your approach?
Drop it in the comments :D

For more insights on building a personal brand system that works for you, the TCA newsletter is your playbook.

Subscribe here 👉 https://lnkd.in/eu78xAs2

♻️ Save this and repost to help a founder stop starting from zero.
And follow me, Josh S., for more on building a personal brand minus the writer's block :)

The key to high performing LinkedIn content? 

Telling great stories. Steal these 6 frameworks: 

We've all been there... 
Hours spent writing content, all for a flop 

(It sucks lol) 

But it doesn't have to be like this. 
In fact, the best creators all have one skill down... 

They tell great stories. 

Here are 6 storytelling models 
You can use immediately:

1. The Hero’s Journey

Take people from ordinary world → challenge → tests → reward → transformation.

Best for:
Origin stories and case studies.

2. The Golden Circle

Start with WHY, then HOW and then WHAT. 

Because people will always be convinced more by the why. 

Best for:
Brand messaging and pitching.

3. The Fichtean Curve

Stack crisis after crisis. Each one bigger than the last...
Until the resolution.

As tension keeps people reading.

Best for:
Lesson posts and comeback stories.

4. The Origin Story

Before → Turning point → Now.

Show the problem you lived through.
Highlight the moment everything changed.
And then show who you’ve become.

Best for:
Founder stories and investor pitches.

5. ABT Framework (And, But, Therefore)

Set the scene, bring in some sweet tension 
And deliver the payoff.

Best for:
LinkedIn hooks and cold outreach.

6. StoryBrand

Always make your customer the hero. 
You are simply the guide providing the plan.

Best for:
Specigic LinkedIn sales copy (and landing pages).

So if you're stuck with your ideas not landing. 
Give these a go ! 

You may be surprised with their impact :D 

Which framework do you use the most out of these ? 
Let me know in the comments below ! 

💾 Save this for later. 
♻ Repost to help others tell better stories.
And follow Josh S. for more practical breakdowns like this.

Wondering which LLM you should spend your hard earned cash on? 

Look no further... here's the sheet for you: 

A banger comparison sheet from the main man Chris Donnelly

We've been spending months testing every major AI model. 

And they all have different pros and cons. 

But it goes deeper than that... 
The art is knowing which LLM to use for each specific task. 

Here's how the top 6 stack up in 2026: 

1. Claude Opus 4.5 (4.6 new updated hehe) 
The model we rely on most, I spend so long on here ! 

Best for: Strong reasoning and long-form thinking
Downside: Less spontaneous with creative ideas

2. ChatGPT-5.2
Still the most "every day" tool available.

Best for: Strong reasoning and multimodal support.
Downside: Costs increase quickly with heavy usage

3. Gemini 3
Google’s model, now so effective to use. 

Best for: Multimodal understanding across documents and image generation 
Downside: Writing output can feel restrained

4. Perplexity
The fastest way to get high quality research. 

Best for: Real-time search with clear citations
Downside: Limited creative generation

5. Grok 4.1
Strong awareness of what’s happening in this moment.

Best for: Real-time trend and cultural context
Downside: Limited use for structured or technical work

6. DeepSeek 3.2
Open-source, highly efficient for technical teams. 

Best for: Strong quantitative and STEM reasoning
Downside: Limited documentation outside Asia

Each model will serve a slightly different purpose. 

My personal favourite is Claude as I loveee to writ with it. 
But I would encourage everyone to test them and see for yourself. 

The deeper you experiment, the more value each one can provide. 

Which is your favourite LLM and why? 
Drop it down below ! 

💾 Save to study when you have some time free ! 
♻️ Repost to help others understand the different LLMs 
And follow Josh S. for more.

Your personal brand is costing you 1000s of opportunities. 

Don't be blind to it. Avoid these mistakes:

You probably think showing up consistently is enough.

But personal branding is reputation management at scale. 
Every post and comment you share either builds or breaks your credibility.

Those who get this build businesses off the back of their brand.
But the guys who don't... well, say goodbye to lead generation 😬

Here are the 5 mistakes killing your credibility:

🗣️ Generic LinkedIn guru speak

"Combine content to unlock growth."

Vague language shows vague thinking. 

You need to think about it like someone who wants to hire you.
And that's never gonna happen if you don't make yourself clear.

Instead: Replace filler with specific, plain statements about real things you've done or believe. 

🏆 Humble bragging disguised as lessons

"Failed my way to 7 figures" posts make people roll their eyes. 
(I know this, cos I roll my eyes too)

Readers can tell the difference between founders who want to teach and who just want to be seen.

Instead: Lead with the learning and let the outcome speak for itself.

🎯 Posting without purpose

Random thoughts are not a content strategy.
You need to answer "why am I posting this?" before you hit publish.

Instead: Define what job the post is doing before you write it. That's how content becomes a system.

⿻ Copying other founders' playbooks

Studying what's working for top creators is a smart starting point.
Stopping there is the mistake.

Take the formats and topics getting traction, understand why they work, then run them through your own experience and opinions.

Yes, the market already has Gary Vee and Alex Hormozi. 
It doesn't have YOU.

Instead: Use what's working as a starting point. Then add YOUR unique insights.

📸 Treating LinkedIn like Instagram

Professional doesn't have to mean you've got a stiff upper lip. 
LinkedIn has room for personality (I'm a prime example 😜).

But every piece of content should pass the test of whether this makes sense in a room full of your ideal clients.

If it doesn't, you shouldn't be posting it.

Instead: You can be warm and funny while representing your expertise in every interaction.

I see founders making these 5 mistakes on a daily basis. 
Each one destroys the credibility your content is trying to build.

If you're only sharing your wins, people won't get to know the real you.
Be real with your audience and show them how you learned from your mistakes.

That way, you'll build a trust that can't be broken. 

That's what happens when a personal brand is built with intention.

Which of the 5 hits closest to home?
Let me know below.

To learn more about building a personal brand and speaking to your ICP, 
Subscribe to the TCA Newsletter: https://lnkd.in/eu78xAs2

💾 Save this to avoid the mistakes for later ! 
♻️ Repost to help founders in your network fix their brand.
And follow me, Josh S., for more on personal branding and LinkedIn strategy.

Most people will quit very early on LinkedIn: 

Here’s the reason why (and how to avoid): 

They don’t realise LinkedIn mirrors real life.
It’s all about persistence and adaptability.

People watch creators skyrocket in growth...
And assume they blew up overnight.

The truth is completely different.

This is how the journey really unfolds:

1. You define your core topics and have buckets of ambition.
2. You then start posting and put yourself out there.
3. You engage daily in comments and start to build a community.
4. You follow LinkedIn advice from gurus who can't back it up. 
5. And finally you give up when it doesn’t click instantly.

It can be an insanely brutal process. 
But if you stick at it...

This happens too:

✅ You analyse what actually gets results and learn.
✅ You restart and apply the lessons to go again.
✅ You then double down on what works for you. 
✅ Then the growth starts happening.

🏆 And you become a recognised name in your space. 

It’s a wild ride.

And the algorithm is always evolving.
So you’re constantly forced to adjust.

But that’s why LinkedIn rewards those who stick it out.

How’s LinkedIn going for you right now? 
Drop your thoughts below.

♻️ Repost to help those struggling on LinkedIn 
And follow Josh S. for more!

AI can 10x the speed at which you write your content.  

But most people put in the wrong inputs...

They type "write me a post about X" and wonder why it sounds like every other LinkedIn account.

AI can only work with what you give it.
Give it nothing unique, get nothing unique back 🤷‍♂️

And unique content is key if you want to build a great personal brand. 

After building content systems for 750+ founders inside TCA, 
Here's the 4-layer framework that fixes this and lets you stand out from the crowd.

🗣 LAYER 1: VOICE EXTRACTION

Before AI can write like you, it needs to know how you think.
Most founders skip this and then complain AI doesn't sound like them. 

Prompt: "Analyse my last 10 posts. Extract my tone, sentence patterns, and recurring themes. Create a voice profile I can reference for every future post."

Do this once, then update it every few months. Everything else gets easier from here.

⛏ LAYER 2: EXPERIENCE MINING

Your best content comes from real experiences. 

Prompt: "Turn this experience into 3 content angles: a tactical lesson, a mindset shift, and an industry observation. For each, identify the core emotion and the specific audience it speaks to."

1 real experience becomes 3 distinct posts. This is how founders never run out of ideas.

🔎 LAYER 3: PERSPECTIVE INJECTION

Generic advice is everywhere on LinkedIn.
What lands is a specific point of view.

Prompt: "Rewrite this idea through the perspective of someone who believes [your controversial review] and speaks directly to [your specific audience]."

You can add, "make it direct, confident, and free from corporate language."
This way, the content comes directly from you.

✅ LAYER 4: AUTHENTICITY FILTER

Even with the right inputs, AI still goes into robot mode and makes up clichés nobody says.

The prompt: "Review this draft. Remove any AI tells, clichés, and rhetorical questions. If this doesn't sound like something I'd say to a founder over coffee, rewrite those parts until it does."

This step alone will improve your content more than anything else in the process. I get it.
You might want to skip straight to "write me a post" because it's faster in the short term.

But generic content builds a generic audience.
Which means low engagement, wrong followers, and no business pipeline.

The founders spending an extra 20 minutes on a proper AI workflow are getting 10x the results.

Which of the 4 layers is missing from your current AI workflow?

- A voice profile AI can reference
- Your specific perspective and point of view
- Real experiences in your prompts
- A final authenticity check before anything goes live

Start with Layer 1, so you can build the voice profile first.

If you're serious about working with AI to scale your personal brand,
TCA's weekly newsletter is for you 👉 https://lnkd.in/eu78xAs2

♻️ Repost for founders who need better AI prompts.
And follow me, Josh S., for more on using AI the right way.

2021: Graduated Uni with no idea what I was doing 

2026: Co-founder to a $10M business. 

5 years of deep work and figuring things out. 
And it still feels a bit sureal to me tbh. 

If I was to go back and talk to myself back then. 
Here is my fav bits of advice I've picked up: 

1. Find patterens in different industries and apply them to your own. 
2. Never settle. If there's caps on your growth, find another route.
3. Think big. 95% of people cut themselves short thinking too small. 
4. Always take initiative and find a way instead of default asking. 
5. Find execptional people and work very closely with them. 
6. Always pay attention to detail, most people suck at it. 
7. Find a high value skill, and become world class in it.
8. Do random nice things for people consistently.
9. Always keep an eye on standards. 
10. Always take action. 

The last one is the most important. 

Some of these may feel incredibly obvious but this will often be the case.

Because when it sounds so obvious, for the most part, people won't do it. 
Meaning it therefore becomes your biggest advanatge. 

Would love if we could have some wisdommm in the comments below 
today ! 
No AI sh*t just pure life lessons to help others :D 

Happy Friday Legends :D

I've audited 750+ founder profiles...

And the same problem comes up every single time.

Their content could be decent, but their profile isn't.

Founders spend hours on content,
And less than 2 mins thinking about the profile that content leads people to.

Then they wonder why nothing they sell converts (lol).

Your post lasts 24-48hrs most of the time.
Your profile works around the clock. 

So here's the 6-section audit I run on every founder profile.
And luckily for you, it only takes 15 mins!👇

1️⃣ Headline

Don't list your job title and leave it there.
That tells people who you are, but not why they should care.

Fix: Replace it with a value statement.
"I help [specific audience] achieve [specific outcome] without [pain point]."

Time: 2 mins.

2️⃣ Banner

Most founders leave it as a logo or default gradient.
Both are missed opportunities.

Fix: Show what changes for someone when they work with you.
It should communicate your value before anyone reads your headline.
"I help B2B founders generate leads without cold outreach or paid ads."

Time: 3 mins.

3️⃣ About Section

Avoid starting with your background. 

Fix: Open with your ideal client's problem, so they feel understood.
Introduce yourself in the context of how you solve it & close with 1 clear CTA.
"You've been posting every week, but nothing converts. It's time to check your content system."

Time: 4 mins.

4️⃣ Featured Section

It's easy to leave this empty or fill it with your favourite content.
But what it needs is proof that your work can be trusted.

Fix: Show what proves you solve the problem your ideal client came with.
This could be a result, a framework, or a newsletter.
E.g. A post breaking down how a TCA founder went from 0 to 50 inbound leads in 30 days.

Time: 2 mins.

5️⃣ Experience Section

Rewording your CV doesn't cut it (spoiler alert ;)).

Fix: Rewrite every entry around results.
Say "grew ARR by 300% in 18 months" rather than "managed a sales team."

Time: 2 mins.

6️⃣ Contact & CTA

This is the most overlooked section on any founder's profile.

Fix: Add a calendar link to your About section. Make it impossible to miss.
Remove all friction points between someone being interested and someone taking action.

Time: 2 mins.

These are the most important questions you need to ask 👇

→ Does your Headline state a specific outcome for a specific audience?
→ Does your Banner show transformation?
→ Does your About section open with their problem?
→ Does your Featured section prove you can solve the problem your ICP has?
→ Does your Experience section show results?
→ Is there a clear next step for someone ready to talk?

Remember, your content reaches people for 24hrs.
But your profile works every day after.

Which section needs the most attention on your profile?

To learn more about optimising your profile, subscribe to the TCA newsletter: https://lnkd.in/eu78xAs2

♻️ Repost to help founders fix their profile.
Follow me, Josh S., for more LinkedIn breakdowns.

How to make a viral LinkedIn carousel in 9 minutes. 

Using Claude and Gamma: 

Ok so 2 of my fav tools have built a beauttt integration. 

And as data shows carousels perform significantly better than other posts. 
I wanna show you how you the ins and outs for: 

Making an incredible LinkedIn carousel (pronto) 

Try out these easy steps today: 

Step 1: Connect the two tools

- Go into Claude, settings, then browse and search gamma 
- Sign in to your Gamma account 

Step 2: Ensure all of your brand assets are in both tools. 

- Get your fonts, brand assets and colours in Gamma 
- Have Claude trained on your tone of voice and knowledge base. 

Step 3: Research and find pre-validated topics

- Find pre-validated topics and ideas within your content pillars
- Posts that have performed disproportionately well for: 

Either yourself or another creator

Step 4: Once you have found the right topic, expand your thinking 

- Share the idea with Claude and work out how you can differ. 
- Think about improving with your own knowledge and experience

Important note: Never copy an idea directly, think about which alternate angles you can take and how you can offer new advice and information from your own expertise. 

Step 5: Once you have a clear structure, build out the info 

- Start to develop the copy for the carousel slides 
- And think of which type of images you'll be supporting it with 

Step 6: Simply write "Gamma help me create a presentation on this based on my usual brand assets" 

- Wait as it produces the slides for you
- Then go in and check what it creates for you ! 

Step 7: Edit and adjust

- Make sure the copy and images are exactly how you want it. 
- Really try to provide as much actionable value as possible ! 

Step 8: Get that carousel live ! 

- Use Claude to summarise your carousel into an actionable caption.
- Make the caption scannable and well structured with a curiosity driving hook. 

Then post at your ICP most active time. 

And there you have it folks !
Making an incredible LinkedIn carousel in 8 simple steps :) 

Give it a try here: https://lnkd.in/eQcFh84j

Have you tried this yet? 
Let me know below ! 

♻️ Repost this to help your network save their precious time 
And follow Josh S. for more! 

#gammapartner #ad

Brand partnership • The creator economy is changing how founders grow | I help founders navigate it | 5+ years in the space | Co-Founder of The Creator Accelerator | Follow for posts on Personal Branding, Content Creation & AI

We’re hiring a Marketing Manager to join our team.

This could be a career defining move...  

Comment "JOB" below, and I'll send you the full spec personally.

Firstly, do not click "easy apply". 
We're interested in people who actually read the job spec and can follow instructions. 

Here are the key details: 

Salary: £35k - £40k Depending on experience 
Location: London Bridge - Hybrid (in office 2 days a week) 

Huge opportunities for growth:
 
We are 18 months in at $10M revenue and have a very small team.
So you'll be coming in at the early stages !

What is TCA? 

For those seeing this for the first time, we run 10 week cohorts,
Helping founders significantly grow their audience and generate leads. 

Now we are on our 7th cohort (waitlist is now open 👀).

And after 6 fully sold-out cohorts, 750+ students taught
And some of the biggest creators on the platform learning from us... 

The business is growing thick and fast.
Which means we need someone who can keep up.

That's why we’re looking for a kick-ass marketing manager who will help us do exactly that.

Here's what this looks like:

- Writing lead magnets that pull in the right founders
- Building email sequences that convert
- Producing landing page copy that makes the right person feel immediately understood
- Writing high converting webinar decks
- Building out the TCA brand from the ground up 

So if this sounds like a bit of you, here's exactly what were looking for 👇

✅ 1-2 years in marketing, copy, or content 
✅ You are an execptional writer
✅ You're already paying attention to what's working on LinkedIn
✅ You can take a brief and run with it
✅ You can adapt to things quickly and want to grow fast

The learning curve is steep, and that's the point.

You'll be working directly with me 
And learning things most marketers don't see until way later in their careers.

If you don't tick every box, but you know this is where you want to be, apply anyway ! XD

Again, comment "JOB" below, and I'll send you the full spec personally.

Would really appreicate if you could either repost this,
Or tag the person who you think would be great !

I got 10 years of progress in 2 and I did 1 thing to get it:  

Work closely with an exceptional founder.

Heard this advice recently from Daniel Priestley 
And tbh, I have never agreed with anything more in my life.  

Just shy of 2 and half years ago I joined Chris Donnelly. 

At the time, I knew I wanted more from my career
But I didn't know where to start. 

I knew I wanted to work insanely hard, but felt limited in my role.
Then I saw an opportunity to work with Chris, and I knew it'd be the move for me.

And boi did things move at 100mph. 

In the space of 9 months, we scaled his audience to over 1.5 million (from about 200,00) 
And before I knew it we decided to start a business to teach others to do the same. 

In 9 months, I went from personal brand manager to co-founder. 

Still blows my mind now tbh. 

If you're looking for that kind of progress in any kind of role
In most industries that would take 10+ years. 

And I'm not saying any of this was easy...

It took the hardest I've ever worked and multiplied it by like 38 hahaha. 

But wow was it worth it.

So if you're looking for more in your career or life...
Start working with an incredible founder. 

The learning curve will be vertical. 

But your life will never be the same again. 

Always grateful to the homie Chris 

And the teams we have around us are genuinely the best in the world. 

What a time to be alive :D 

Happy Friday Legends 💪

Founder of Dent Global & ScoreApp | Awarded Entrepreneur of the Year | 7x business books | Founded/exited multiple ventures | Mission to develop entrepreneurs who stand out, scale up and make a dent.

18 months ago, Chris and I hedged our bets.

We poured our heart and soul into something special.

And it paid off.

We decided to stop keeping our process private and start teaching it.  

At the time, we'd grown Chris's LinkedIn from 180k to 650k in 6 months.
Doors were opening that we hadn't even anticipated.

So we launched The Creator Accelerator (TCA).
And the results in 18 months were honestly mad:

- 20x ROI for each member on average
- $10m ARR for the TCA business itself (wild)
- Students going from nothing to hundreds of thousands of followers

I'm genuinely proud of the wins we see daily at TCA.   

But going into 2026, something became clear...

LinkedIn reach had dropped, and the algorithm had changed A LOT.  

Having a big follower count wasn't enough anymore.
You needed to convert attention into leads and generate real business returns.

The ones struggling were still optimising for views.

So we made another call.

We refocused TCA entirely on what was actually working 👇
Lead generation, funnel optimisation, and outsized business returns.

The proof was already there. 
Our lead magnets had driven 23,000+ leads in 30 days.

The playbook existed; it just needed to become the whole programme.

So we rebuilt it from scratch.

We created new modules on funnel optimisation and social selling, and a full 10-week programme ranging from profile optimisation to lead generation.

Building TCA has been the chance to create what I wished had existed when I started.

And the 2026 version is the closest it's ever been to that.

What's the biggest shift you're making to your business in 2026?
Drop it below :)

If you're serious about turning your personal brand into your biggest business asset this year,
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Creator Accelerator👉 https://lnkd.in/eu78xAs2

♻️ Repost to help a founder in your network who needs to hear this.
And follow me, Josh S., for more on building a personal brand that converts.

We're hiring a Marketing Manager at TCA!

Here's what you need to know upfront 👇

- Salary: £35k-£40k depending on experience
- Location: London Bridge, hybrid (2 days in office)
- Stage: 18 months in, $10M revenue

If this sounds like a bit of you, comment "JOB" below and I'll send you the full spec personally.

For anyone new here, The Creator Accelerator runs 10-week cohorts helping founders grow their audience and generate leads on LinkedIn.

We're on cohort 7. Every single one has sold out.
750+ founders taught and the business is moving fast.

Which means we need someone who's up for the task.
Cos we have a lot of exciting stuff happening. 

Now the formalities are out of the way... 
Here's what a day in YOUR life, as a TCA Marketing Manager, actually looks like:

Morning kicks off with checking what's converting, what's not, and what needs fixing.

You know what's shipping that day, and nothing gets missed.

Late morning is deep work.

Writing lead magnets, drafting email sequences, shaping landing page copy for a launch.

This is where the good stuff happens.

Afternoons are more collaborative.
Briefing webinar decks with me, reviewing copy, refining messaging.

Fast feedback loops, you'll never be waiting around. 

Late afternoon, you're reviewing performance.
Not just tracking numbers but actually making sense of them and deciding what changes next.

Every day looks a little different. And that's the point.
Because it's the kind of different that makes you really good, really fast.

So, here's what we need from you.

👉 1-2 years in marketing, copy, or content
👉 You can write properly, every single day, without needing a load of edits
👉 You're a LinkedIn nerd XD
👉 You take a brief and run with it
👉 You want to grow fast and don't need hand-holding to do it

You'll work directly with me from day one.
(Lucky you 😉)

There's no hierarchy or micromanaging.
Just good work and a lot of learning. 

So jump on it while you can. 
Even if you think you don't tick every box.

If you know this is the type of environment you want to be part of.
Apply anyway :)

Comment "JOB" below, and I'll send you the full spec personally.

And if you know someone perfect for this, tag them or give this a repost. Would mean a lot!

♻️ Repost to spread the word.
And follow me, Josh S., for more on what we're building at TCA.

Fractional CIO & Strategic Advisor | Helping Non-Technical Leaders Make Technical Decisions | Scaled Orgs from $0 to $3B+

Strategic IT Leadership for Growing Companies

Helping non-technical founders and small business leaders scale without getting slowed down by their own systems

The Problem
Most companies don’t fail because they dream too small.
They fail because their technology trips them up before they ever hit full speed.

Systems that don’t talk to each other

Vendors that overpromise and underdeliver

Teams that pull in different directions

Operational chaos hidden behind "we’ll fix it later"

Growth without fundamentals isn't a shortcut—it's a detour. Real business expansion is about building systems that scale with integrity, not just adding layers of complexity to a shaky core.

The Outcome
I help you build a stronger, smarter, simpler technology foundation — one that scales with your business, not against it.

✅ Faster operations
✅ Smarter use of tools and teams
✅ Fewer expensive mistakes
✅ A clear, flexible roadmap for growth
✅ More time spent leading — less time fighting fires

My Approach
I’m not here to sell you systems you don’t need or waste months writing strategy decks nobody reads.

I’m here to help you:

Fix what’s broken (before it costs you real money)

Align your people, process, and platforms (so they work together, not against each other)

Build momentum you can actually feel (and measure in real-world results)

I bring 30 years of hands-on experience building and scaling IT in organizations that grew from to over $3B — many times as the very first IT hire, often leading global distributed teams.

What you get is simple:
Real strategy. Real execution. Real growth.

No bloat. No buzzwords. No bureaucratic nonsense.

Services
Fractional CIO Leadership
Part-time executive leadership to align your tech and business strategy, manage vendors, and build internal capabilities without hiring a full-time CIO.

Project Rescue and Turnaround
When critical projects stall, I step in to realign teams, simplify the chaos, and deliver results.

Vendor and System Sourcing
Find the right systems and partners that fit your business — not someone else’s template.

Strategic IT Roadmapping
Clear, practical roadmaps that connect today’s actions to tomorrow’s growth.

Who I Work Best With
Founders and business leaders who:

Are serious about scaling

Know tech is crucial but don’t want to live inside it

Value momentum over perfection

Want a partner who talks business, not just tech

Ready to Clear the Bottlenecks and Build What's Next?
Let's start with a simple conversation.
No sales pitch. Just clarity on where you are — and what’s possible next.

Phillip R. Kennedy

The VP forwarded the CEO's angry email to the whole engineering team at 9:47 PM on a Thursday. 

Daniel's manager replied-all at 9:48: "I'll handle this. Everyone log off."

Twelve seconds. Two completely different leaders.

The CEO's email was four sentences. A client's integration broke during a routine deployment. The client called the CEO directly. The fourth sentence: "I need to understand who is responsible."

The VP read it and clicked Forward. Added the entire engineering distribution list. Twenty-three people. Two words at the top: "See below."

No context. No plan. Just a CEO's anger, amplified to two dozen engineers on a Thursday night, most of whom had nothing to do with the deployment.

Daniel was brushing his teeth when his phone buzzed. He'd been at the company four months. He'd worked on a small piece of the integration three weeks earlier. Close enough to wonder. Close enough to lose sleep.

His shoulders went up. He started mentally composing a defense for code he'd written at 2 PM on a random Tuesday.

Then his phone buzzed again. 9:48.

"I'll handle this. Everyone log off."

Seven words. No exclamation point. No performative urgency. Just: this is not your problem tonight. It's mine.

James fixed it by 11:30. Configuration issue. Not a code defect. Nobody on the team caused it.

The next morning, James emailed his team: "Issue resolved. Config problem. Nothing any of you shipped caused this. If last night's email stressed you out, that's worth a conversation. My door's open."

Daniel saved that message. Not because it was eloquent. Because it was the first time a manager acknowledged that an internal communication could cause harm, and took ownership of it.

The VP forwarded blame at the speed of a click. James absorbed it in twelve seconds.

Same crisis. Same night. Two completely different engineering cultures.

Your team already knows which one you are.

♻️ Repost if you've had a manager whose first instinct was to protect the team, not forward the pressure 

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for more on engineering leadership that absorbs the hit instead of passing it down

I've spent 30 years watching what great technical leaders actually do.

Almost none of it looks like leadership on paper.

18 things I've seen the best ones do:

1. Say "I don't know" out loud so the team learns it's safe to say it too.

2. Kill a meeting to protect four hours of uninterrupted build time.

3. Put a junior engineer on the project everyone said she wasn't ready for. Then quietly clear the path.

4. Sit in the architecture review and ask the quiet person in the back what they think. Then actually wait for the answer.

5. Walk into a budget meeting and make technical debt visible to executives who only see features shipped.

6. Recognize the engineer who prevented the outage. Not just the one who fixed it.

7. Take the call from the angry stakeholder so the team can keep building.

8. Fight for an infrastructure investment that won't show results for six months. Then fight again when someone tries to cut it in Q3.

9. Tell their best engineer "you should interview for that role" before she'd ever considered leaving the team.

10. Share their own worst production mistake in a retro. Watch the room exhale.

11. Push for a promotion before the engineer asks. Then build the case so well it's undeniable.

12. Translate a forty-five minute technical explanation into two sentences a CFO can act on. Without losing what matters.

13. Block the fourth "urgent" request in two weeks. "Urgent" is not a strategy.

14. Pair a twenty-year veteran with a six-month hire. Tell both of them they're going to learn something.

15. Turn "this is broken" into "what would good look like?" Same facts. Completely different energy.

16. Advocate for sustainable pace when everyone above them is performing urgency.

17. Create space for exploration that might not ship anything. Then defend it when someone asks for the ROI.

18. Remember that the job was never to be the smartest person in the room. It was to make the room smarter.

None of this shows up on a dashboard. Most of it never gets recognized in a performance review.

But the engineers remember. And they become leaders who do the same things.

That's how you scale more than systems.

♻️ Repost if you've had a leader who did one of these and it changed your trajectory 

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for more on technical leadership that builds people, not just products

He texted me eighteen months after leaving the company. 7:32 AM on a Tuesday. "Congrats on the promotion. You earned it."

He had zero organizational reason to care.

James had been my CTO for three years. Left to start his own company. Most former bosses disappear when the org chart changes. Within a month, the relationship becomes a LinkedIn connection you scroll past.

James never did that.

When I got stuck on an architecture decision after he'd gone, I almost didn't reach out. He replied in twenty minutes: "Coffee Thursday?" Asked three questions that reframed the problem. No lecture. No "remember who helped you" energy.

When a product manager kept changing requirements mid-sprint, James said something I still use: "Your job isn't to stop the changes. It's to make the cost visible to the people requesting them."

When I left for a startup, most of leadership went quiet. That silence tells you which relationships were real. James responded in an hour: "Exactly the right move. Need references?"

The promotion text came a year later. His own company, across the country. My career had zero impact on his.

I've had many managers. Most competent and forgettable. James is the only one whose influence outlasted his badge access.

He never managed from the org chart. The authority was incidental to the relationship. When the authority left, the relationship didn't.

Most leaders aren't this way. Not because they're bad people. Because organizations reward transactional leadership. When someone leaves, the incentive to stay connected disappears.

Leaders who stay were always outside that system. They invested in the person, not the role.

The test that matters more than any review: would people who used to work for you still take your call? Not because you can help them. Because it was never about that.

♻️ Repost if you've had a leader whose influence outlasted their title

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for more on leadership that survives the org chart

She said she was "doing fine" and "learning a lot." Two weeks later she put in her notice.

I'd asked all the right questions. How are you settling in? Anything blocking you?

Surface-level questions get surface-level answers. And surface-level answers hide problems until they become resignation letters.

That exit taught me first 1:1s aren't introductions. They're the moment you earn honest communication or guarantee you'll never get it.

Most leaders fill that meeting with org charts and project updates. Nobody gets uncomfortable. Nobody learns anything.

After thirty years, here's what actually surfaces truth:

"Walk me through the last time you dug into someone else's code." Tells you more about team culture in three minutes than any survey. Listen for colleagues who help vs. territory that's guarded.

"What's the most frustrating part of getting your work done here?" Not "any concerns?" That gets "everything's great." Ask what frustrates them, then sit in the silence. The pause tells you whether honesty feels safe.

"When you disagree with a technical decision, how does that play out?" If the answer is "I don't usually disagree," that's not harmony. That's someone who learned speaking up costs more than staying quiet.

"If a friend asked whether they should join this team, what would you honestly tell them?" People rarely lie when it's framed as advice to someone they care about.

"How do you know when you've done good work here?" If they can't answer, your org hasn't made it clear.

You don't need ten questions. You need three honest ones and the discipline to stop talking after you ask them.

The engineers who answer carefully are often your best performers trying not to get fired for saying what's broken. The ones who say "everything's great" in week one say it again in their exit interview.

♻️ Repost if you've learned more from one honest answer than a dozen safe ones

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for more on leading teams with better questions

He'd been the fastest developer on the team for nine years. Last quarter, a mid-level with half his experience outshipped him three to one.

She wasn't a better coder. She'd quietly changed what her job was.

Rachel started using AI agents the way a good manager uses a team: delegate predictable work, provide context, review output, redirect when something drifts. Agents handled integrations, test coverage, docs. She focused on architecture and judgment calls between what agents produced and what the system needed.

Still an IC on the org chart. Her daily work looked like management.

David coded line by line. Nine years of it. Genuinely good. He'd see no IDE on her screen and assume she was slacking.

Then sprint reviews told a different story.

Rachel shipped three features in a cycle where David closed four tickets. Not because she was smarter. Because she'd changed the ratio between thinking and typing.

His response is one I hear constantly: "That's not real engineering."

I get it. If you built craft through your hands for a decade, watching someone achieve more by orchestrating feels like a violation. Not just a career concern. An identity one.

But stripped of hype, here's what's happening.

The IC role is shifting from production to orchestration. From writing every line to directing, reviewing, and integrating work AI produces. The skills this demands aren't new. They're management skills. Providing context. Reviewing with judgment. Knowing when to intervene. Maintaining quality when production outpaces review.

Every engineer is becoming a manager. Not of people. Of systems that produce at a pace no human can.

The IC track isn't dying. It's evolving. More judgment. More context. Less typing. More thinking.

For engineers willing to make that shift, it's the best version of the job they've had.

♻️ Repost if your role is quietly shifting from building to orchestrating

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for more on the real AI shift in technical work

She accepted an offer for 15% more. Her manager started a counteroffer. I told him to stop.

The money wasn't the problem. He just didn't know what the problem was.

Days before notice, her fix prevented a major outage. Week before, her refactoring cut response times in half. Her architecture decisions saved thousands in cloud costs monthly.

Her manager knew none of this. Not because he didn't care. Because he was a non-technical founder at a $12M company and nobody taught him what to look for.

He saw tickets closed. Features shipped. Through that lens, every engineer looked the same.

She didn't feel underpaid. She felt invisible.

This is the pattern I see most in growing companies. The founder is sharp. Competent in their domain. But they evaluate engineering like a restaurant kitchen: if food comes out, everything's fine.

The engineer preventing outages looks identical to one doing unremarkable work. Both close tickets. The difference is invisible unless you know what great engineering looks like.

That's not a character flaw. It's a knowledge gap. And it's expensive.

After she left, I told him: you don't need to understand code. You need three sentences.

"I heard your fix Tuesday prevented a customer issue. Tell me about it." Engineers know instantly if recognition is genuine. Specificity is the difference.

"What technical work happened this month I'd never see in a sprint review?" This teaches you what's invisible.

"What should I understand better about what engineering does?" Most leaders won't ask. Feels vulnerable. That's why it works.

The counteroffer would've cost $30K. She'd have stayed six months and left anyway. Her best work looked the same as average to the person signing her check.

Engineers don't leave for better offers. They leave when no one can tell the difference.

♻️ Repost if you've seen an engineer leave because leadership couldn't see it

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for helping non-technical leaders keep great engineers

She stopped getting invited to strategy meetings in month four. By month eighteen, she'd stopped noticing.

That's the scary part.

Not the exclusion. The adaptation. Priya rebuilt their payment system from scratch. Designed architecture that scaled them from 200 to 2,000 concurrent users without adding. When their biggest client threatened to leave over reliability, her monitoring work saved the account.

The CEO texted the CTO about technical feasibility. Never Priya. The CFO questioned velocity at board meetings she wasn't in. Product roadmap happened Tuesdays. She found out Thursdays, after decisions were locked.

She wasn't failing. She was being compressed. Compression doesn't feel dramatic. You don't notice the ceiling dropping. You just start hunching.

By month twelve she'd stopped proposing improvements. By eighteen she was executing what others decided, calling it "being a team player," wondering why she was so tired.

I asked her when she'd last made a decision nobody above her rerouted. Too long before she answered.

Decades of this work. The pattern repeats. The CEO calls engineering "the IT group" at board meetings. Not just a wrong label. Labels shape budgets. Budgets shape headcount. Headcount shapes what Priya gets to build. When systems fail and the first question is "who did this" instead of "what happened," leaders absorb that. Stop taking risks. Stop volunteering hard truths. Shrink to fit.

She left. Smaller company. CEO with an engineering background. Six months later she told me: "I forgot what it felt like to have an idea and be allowed to finish the sentence."

She hadn't gotten smarter. She'd gotten room.

If something in your chest just tightened, pay attention to that. Not every struggle is a skills gap. Sometimes the ceiling is just low.

♻️ Repost if you've felt the difference between being grown and being compressed

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for building environments where technical leaders thrive

They spent eight months building an AI recommendation engine. Beautiful machine learning. Garbage recommendations.

Their product catalog had 847 duplicate entries and descriptions from 2020.

The AI did exactly what it was designed to do. Found patterns and served them confidently. Customers got recommended discontinued products, duplicates of things in their cart, accessories for items no longer sold. Confident wrong answers at machine speed.

This company isn't unusual. They're the norm.

The pattern is becoming too common. The CEO hears AI is table stakes. The board wants a strategy. So leadership announces an initiative while their systems run on spreadsheets, manual uploads, and that one person who reconciles the data every Friday.

Customer records in seventeen tools. Support tickets referencing orders that don't exist in the main database. Three definitions of "active customer" depending on which dashboard you open.

Then they layer AI on top and wonder why it doesn't work.

AI doesn't fix broken systems. It scales them. Wrong answers with perfect grammar. Three versions of truth delivered faster than ever.

The most effective AI deployment I saw last year was boring. Nine months of cleanup before writing a single prompt. Data consolidated. Duplicates resolved. Systems connected. One source of truth.

No press release. When they turned on AI, it just worked. Not because the technology was special. Because it had something sane to work with.

Before you spend another dollar on AI: would a new employee be confused by your current systems? If yes, so will the AI. Just faster and more expensively.

The companies quietly winning aren't the ones with the biggest AI budgets. They're the ones who did the boring work first.

♻️ Repost if you've watched AI get layered on a foundation that couldn't support a spreadsheet

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for technology decisions that actually work

He told the CEO he was 60% sure. The CEO said, "That's 20% more than I had when I started this company. Go."

Daniel had been circling a platform decision for three weeks. Two viable paths. Trade-offs he could model, risks he couldn't. The data said "maybe" in fourteen different ways.

He kept requesting more analysis. Another benchmark. One more comparison. His director finally said, "You're not gathering information. You're avoiding a decision."

She was right.

Daniel could architect systems most people couldn't diagram on a whiteboard. The problem was never capability.

He'd confused certainty with competence.

He believed good leaders decide because they know the answer. So when he didn't know, he assumed he wasn't ready. More data. More time. The team stalled.

The CEO's response broke something open. Every founder who's built something real knows certainty almost never arrives on time.

Daniel made the call Thursday. "Here's what we're doing, here's why, and here's what I'm not sure about. We'll learn the rest by building."

Six months later, two of his assumptions were wrong. The team had adapted. What he'd agonized over mattered less than the momentum of actually moving.

This pattern lives everywhere. The leader who won't commit until every variable is known. The founder polishing the deck instead of making the call. The executive requesting another quarter of data before approving a hire they know they need.

It looks like diligence. Past a certain point, it's avoidance in a professional costume.

Courage doesn't follow confidence. It's the other way around.

Daniel told me a year later: "I used to think my job was to have the answer. Now I think it's to make the call and help the team navigate what we find on the other side."

That's not a technology insight. That's a leadership one.

♻️ Repost if you've made the right call on incomplete data and didn't know it until later 

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for more on leading through uncertainty

They hit every sprint target for eleven months. Green across every dashboard. The board loved them.

Their production system was rotting from the inside.
I got called after the third senior engineer left in six weeks. The CEO was baffled. "Velocity is up. Deployment frequency is the highest it's been. Why are they leaving?"

I spent a week with the team before opening a dashboard.

Engineers had learned to game every metric leadership tracked. Points inflated. Deployments split into smaller chunks. Tickets closed at "good enough."

The burndown charts were beautiful. The codebase was held together with workarounds nobody touched.

Nobody had raised it. The one engineer who tried, eight months earlier, got told metrics showed everything was fine. Last time anyone spoke up.

The moment I knew the team was in trouble wasn't in a report. It was in planning. A junior engineer pushed back on a timeline. Got two sentences in. The room went still. Not respect. Warning. She stopped. "Never mind, we can make it work."

On a healthy team, that sentence never gets cut short.

The signs that matter have nothing to do with velocity. When something breaks, does the team ask "what failed" or "who failed?" When someone says a deadline is unrealistic, does the room listen or reroute? Does the team celebrate three weeks of database work nobody outside engineering will notice?

These behaviors don't fit in Jira. They're the difference between a team that ships metrics and one that builds systems you can bet a company on.

His best engineers hadn't left for comp. They left because they'd been saying the system was fragile, leadership pointed at green dashboards, and they decided to let the next team deal with it.

Prevention never shows up on a dashboard. But it's the reason you still have a business.

♻️ Repost if you've seen the gap between what metrics show and what's really happening

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for seeing what dashboards miss in engineering teams

I watched him delete a Slack message. He'd started typing a direct answer to an engineer's architecture question, stopped, and forwarded it to his direct report instead.

He'd been VP for eleven days.

James had been a director for three years. Engineers loved working for him. Answered questions directly. Showed up in code reviews to learn. Knew the last five production incidents by heart.

Eleven days in, something shifted. A quiet recalibration of who he thought he was supposed to be.

Stopped joining sprint demos. Replaced architecture chats with "strategy alignment" meetings. When engineers pinged him, he forwarded the message.

He wasn't arrogant. He was doing what he thought VPs do. Every VP he'd watched kept distance. Details were for directors.

The system was turning a connected leader into an abstraction.

I'd seen it dozens of times. The title lands and the operating system changes. Not because the person changed. Because the calendar fills differently. Information arrives filtered. You stop hearing what engineers think and start hearing what managers think engineers think.

Three months in, his team didn't recognize him. Engineers routed through his chief of staff. The architect who used to argue with him had stopped, because James was no longer in the room where those arguments happened.

I told him: "You used to spot the caching problem before anyone filed a ticket. Now you find out in a weekly summary. That gap is where your judgment lived."

He made a few changes. Kept one architecture session weekly. Not to decide. To listen. Stayed in sprint demos for his most critical product. When engineers pinged him, he answered directly.

Small things. But the team noticed immediately: proximity isn't beneath me.

The title doesn't have to change you. But it will, unless you choose which connections to protect.

♻️ Repost if you've watched a promotion quietly rewire someone

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for leadership that stays connected to the work

The CTO told me he'd spent his weekend studying AI augmented development. His background was finance. His best engineers were leaving. He thought the two problems were connected.

They weren't.

Daniel had been CTO for eighteen months. Smart. Great with numbers, strategy, board communication. Zero engineering experience. He assumed credibility meant closing the gap. So he studied. Tutorials. Whitepapers. Architecture reviews full of detailed implementation questions.

His engineers didn't see a leader learning. They saw a bottleneck forming.

Every decision became a research project. Three-week sprints stretched to six because nothing moved until he felt informed enough to approve. He thought he was being thorough. His team experienced it as distrust.

The senior engineer who left first told me: "I don't need my CTO to understand AI development. I need him to trust that I do and make the call."

That's the gap. Not technical knowledge. Decision-making confidence. Daniel didn't need to understand how to setup OpenClaw. He needed to recognize his senior architect had been right about the last four calls and earned trust to make the fifth without a two-week wait.

The hardest part of leading technical teams without a technical background isn't the knowledge gap. It's saying "I don't fully understand this, I trust your judgment, here's my decision." That terrifies most non-technical leaders. It's also what stops your best people from updating their LinkedIn profiles.

We worked on this together. He stopped studying how to technically implement AI. Started making faster calls based on who recommended them and what they optimized for. Approval cycles shortened. His team stopped leaving.

He told me: "They didn't need a better engineer. They needed faster decisions."

His engineers could have told him that on day one.

♻️ Repost if you've learned that leading technical teams is about decisions, not expertise

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for more on leading technical teams with confidence, not code

His hands were shaking over the keyboard. He'd deployed the change that took checkout offline. Everyone in the room knew it.

Revenue stopped. Tickets stacking. VP of Sales pinging me for an ETA I didn't have.

The room wanted someone to bark orders. Demand root cause. Point at the deployment log.

I sat down next to him. "How many customers are affected right now?"

Not "what happened." Not "whose change."

He stopped staring at the error logs. Pulled up monitoring. "About 1,200 in checkout. Another 300 getting timeouts on product pages."

"Good. Checkout first. Walk me through the rollback."

His hands stopped shaking by the third sentence.

A leader's emotional state during an incident becomes the team's operating environment. Instantly. Walk in radiating urgency and everyone matches it. They talk over each other, chase parallel theories, make decisions that feel productive and create more problems.

Walk in calm and something shifts. The engineer who caused the outage stops bracing for blame and starts working the problem.

The fix took ninety minutes. He found it himself. A config flag that behaved differently in production than staging. After systems were restored, I told the team to go home. Handled the sales update myself. Scheduled the postmortem for two days later, because running a blameless retro on no sleep is how you get a blame-filled one.

Two days later, he proposed the fix: automated config comparison between staging and production. Nobody asked him. He volunteered because the incident room had been safe enough that owning it didn't feel like a career risk.

A year later he led our incident response. Calm. Methodical. Sat next to the person panicking instead of standing over them.

He learned that from a Tuesday afternoon when his hands were shaking and nobody blamed him for it.

♻️ Repost if you've seen calm leadership change the outcome of a crisis

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for more on leading technical teams through hard moments

We've all made the "perfect résumé" hire. Strong credentials. Nailed the technical interview. Three months in, you realize they can solve any problem except the ones that actually matter.

I've hired hundreds of people over thirty years. The pattern that predicts success has almost nothing to do with algorithms or credentials.

It's curiosity. How someone behaves when they hit a problem they don't know how to solve.

One of my best hires had two years of experience and a community college degree. Struggled in the technical round. But when conversation shifted to a real problem we were facing, he asked diagnostic questions that showed he'd operated systems under real pressure. Not textbook answers. Thinking from the weeds.

A year later, three teams called him first when something broke. Not the fastest coder. The one people trusted to think before acting.

What I've learned about what actually predicts success:

Give candidates a real problem, not a puzzle. Walk them through a challenge your team faces. Twenty minutes of real conversation beats an hour of whiteboard performance.

Watch what happens when they don't know. The best say "I haven't seen this, but here's how I'd start." People who bluff in interviews bluff on your team.

Listen to what they ask about. The system, the users, the team? Or just the stack, the title, the comp?

Look for ownership instinct. Ask about a project that went sideways. People worth hiring talk about what they learned. Not who was at fault.

Create unstructured time. Thirty open minutes surface what no template will.

You can teach your tech stack in months. You can't teach someone to care about the problem behind the ticket.

The résumé says where someone's been. The conversation tells you who they are. Most hiring processes only measure the first.

♻️ Repost if your best hire looked nothing like you expected on paper

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for more on building teams that scale on trust

Career advice nobody's giving: Quit. Stack Mac Minis. Subscribe to every AI model and claw bot. Emerge in 90 days as something the market doesn't have a job title for yet.

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