Promoting the Builder

September 2016. We’d been running the builder for eight months. We had two portfolio companies showing early traction, $200,000 in committed capital, and a solid methodology. By any measure, we were doing fine.

Except nobody knew we existed.

I tried to recruit a talented entrepreneur I’d met at a conference. Smart guy, domain expertise in logistics, ready to build something. Perfect fit for us.

His response: “I’ve never heard of your builder. Are you guys legit, or is this some kind of equity-for-services scam?”

That stung. We weren’t a scam; we were the real deal. But from the outside, how could he tell the difference? No website, no public portfolio, no articles, no events. We were invisible.

If your builder doesn’t have a brand, you’re competing for talent with one hand tied behind your back. The best entrepreneurs have options. They’ll join the builder they’ve heard of, the one that seems established, the one where people vouch for the quality.

I spent the next three years figuring out how to promote a venture builder effectively. I made every mistake: content nobody cared about, events with single-digit attendance, partnerships that went nowhere. But I also figured out what works.

This chapter is the marketing playbook I wish I’d had in 2016.

The Builder Marketing Paradox

Venture builders have a weird marketing challenge. You’re trying to reach three completely different audiences simultaneously:

Entrepreneurs (your product buyers)
Investors (your capital providers)
Ecosystem partners (accelerators, corporations, universities who might collaborate or refer)

Each audience cares about completely different things.

Entrepreneurs want to know: Can you help me build a successful company? Do you have relevant expertise? Are your portfolio companies actually succeeding?

Investors want to know: Will you generate returns? What’s your investment thesis? Who’s on your team? What’s the track record?

Partners want to know: Can you add value to our ecosystem? Are you reputable? Will collaborating with you make us look good?

Traditional startup marketing targets one customer persona. Builder marketing needs to speak to three personas who don’t care about the same things.

The mistake most builders make is trying to create generic marketing that appeals to everyone. “We’re a leading venture builder helping startups succeed.” Meaningless corporate speak that excites nobody.

The solution: Segment your marketing. Different content, different channels, different messages for each audience.

Marketing to Entrepreneurs

This is your core marketing challenge. You need a steady pipeline of talented people who want to build companies with you.

What Doesn’t Work

Generic job posts: “Venture builder seeking entrepreneurs” tells people nothing. What kind of entrepreneurs? For what opportunities? What do you actually do?

Corporate websites: If your site looks like a consulting firm’s website (stock photos, buzzwords, “synergy”), you’re repelling the exact creative, independent people you want to attract.

Focusing on the builder, not the opportunity: “We’re an amazing builder with great resources” is less compelling than “We’re launching a logistics startup and need a technical co-founder.”

What Works

1. Specific opportunity showcases

Instead of saying “we’re recruiting entrepreneurs,” showcase specific startup opportunities you’re building:

“We’re launching a B2B SaaS company solving inventory management for small manufacturers. We’ve validated the problem with 30 customer interviews, built an MVP, and secured initial funding. We need a technical co-founder who’s built enterprise software before.”

This is concrete. The right entrepreneur reads this and thinks “That’s exactly what I want to do.”

2. Portfolio founder testimonials

The most credible marketing is your current entrepreneurs saying “This builder actually helps.”

We created a simple video series: 3-minute interviews with portfolio founders talking about their experience. Not scripted corporate testimonials: real conversations about what they’re building and how the builder helped.

One founder said: “Before joining, I was stuck in analysis paralysis. The builder gave me structure, pushed me to talk to customers, and held me accountable. Six months in, we have paying customers and I’ve learned more than in five years at my corporate job.”

That testimonial recruited three entrepreneurs in the next two months.

3. Content that demonstrates expertise

Write about what you know. If you specialize in SaaS, write about SaaS metrics, pricing strategy, sales processes. If you focus on hardware, write about manufacturing, supply chain, prototyping.

Entrepreneurs don’t join builders who have “resources.” They join builders who understand their domain and can actually help them navigate it.

I started writing a weekly article about specific challenges we’d encountered in our portfolio: “How we priced our first enterprise deal,” “What we learned from a failed pivot,” “How to structure founder equity in a builder.”

These weren’t viral hits. But they accumulated. When an entrepreneur googled “how do venture builders handle equity,” they’d find our article. Credibility established.

4. Events where entrepreneurs actually gather

Don’t host “networking events.” Host workshops on specific skills entrepreneurs need.

We ran a monthly “Product-Market Fit Workshop”: a 3-hour session where we taught our framework for customer discovery and validation. We invited our portfolio founders to share their experiences. We made it genuinely useful.

Attendance was 15-25 people. About 20% were potential builder entrepreneurs. The other 80% were aspiring founders who weren’t ready yet but now knew we existed and were helpful.

Within six months, three of those workshop attendees joined us to launch startups.

Marketing to Investors

Investor marketing has one job: make it easy for them to say yes when you’re raising a fund.

What Investors Actually Care About

1. Track record: What’s your portfolio’s performance? Be specific. Don’t say “strong returns”: say “4 of 7 companies have achieved profitability, 2 have raised follow-on rounds, portfolio valuation has increased 8x since inception.”

2. Team credibility: Who’s running this? What have they built before? Can they actually evaluate opportunities and support startups?

3. Investment thesis: What’s your angle? Why will you win? “We build companies” is not a thesis. “We build B2B SaaS companies in underserved European markets leveraging our team’s 30+ years of enterprise software experience” is a thesis.

How to Market to Investors

Don’t: Cold email investors with a pitch deck.

Do: Build relationships long before you need to raise capital.

I made it a habit to send quarterly updates to a list of investors I’d met, whether we were fundraising or not. The updates included:

Portfolio company highlights (new customers, revenue milestones, team expansion)
Lessons learned that quarter
One interesting insight from our work

No ask. Just “here’s what we’re doing.”

After eight quarters of this, when we actually went to raise our next fund, five investors on that list proactively reached out asking to participate. We filled the round in three weeks.

The principle: Investor marketing is relationship building over years, not pitching when you need money.

Marketing to Ecosystem Partners

Partnerships rarely generate immediate value, but they compound over time.

Useful Partnerships

1. Accelerators: Many builders and accelerators have complementary models. Your incubation might feed their acceleration, or vice versa. We partnered with two accelerators: we’d refer companies that were past our phase, they’d refer companies that weren’t ready for them but could benefit from our earlier-stage support.

2. Corporations exploring innovation: Large companies want to innovate but struggle to do it internally. They’re often open to partnerships with builders who can create new ventures for them. This is how corporate venture builders get started.

3. Universities: Academic institutions have entrepreneurial talent but limited practical startup support. Builders can fill that gap. We partnered with a university’s entrepreneurship program: we ran workshops, they gave us access to their founder community.

How to Build These Partnerships

Lead with value, not asks.

When I approached the accelerator for a partnership, I didn’t pitch “we should partner because it would be good for us.” I said: “I noticed you focus on Series A-ready companies. We work with companies in the 0-12 month range. I think we’re seeing companies at different stages of the same pipeline. Would it be useful if I referred pre-Series A companies to you?”

They said yes. I referred three companies. Two got accepted to their program.

Three months later, they asked: “How can we support what you’re doing?” Partnership created.

Content Strategy: Thought Leadership vs. Self-Promotion

Most builder marketing falls into two traps:

Trap 1: Pure self-promotion. “We’re amazing, our portfolio is amazing, join us because we’re amazing.” Nobody cares.

Trap 2: Generic thought leadership. Republishing TechCrunch articles about venture capital trends with a “What do you think?” comment. Adds no value.

The sweet spot is specific, practical content based on your direct experience.

The Content Framework I Use

Every piece of content should teach something specific that someone can use immediately.

Good: “Here’s the exact customer discovery framework we use with every portfolio company, including the questions we ask and how we structure the interviews.”

Bad: “Customer discovery is important for startups.”

Good: “We made a $40,000 mistake by not documenting a client conversation. Here’s the system we now use to prevent that.”

Bad: “Documentation is a best practice.”

Personal experience > generic advice. Specificity > broad principles.

I publish:

Case studies from portfolio companies (with permission): What they tried, what worked, what failed, what we learned
Frameworks we’ve developed: Templates, processes, checklists we actually use
Honest post-mortems: When a startup fails or a strategy doesn’t work, write about it

This content attracts entrepreneurs who value practical, honest guidance. It repels people looking for a get-rich-quick scheme. That’s exactly what we want.

Speaking and Events

Public speaking is the highest-leverage marketing activity if you’re good at it, and a waste of time if you’re not.

When Speaking Works

1. Industry conferences where your target entrepreneurs gather

If you build SaaS companies, speak at SaaS conferences. If you build hardware, speak at maker fairs. Speak where your people are.

2. Academic institutions

Universities constantly host entrepreneurship events. They need speakers. You get access to talented young founders.

3. Builder/accelerator community events

The venture building community is small. Speaking at other builders’ events builds relationships and visibility.

What to Speak About

Don’t pitch your builder. Teach something useful.

I gave a talk titled “The 5 Commandments for Builder Entrepreneurs” (yes, that became a chapter in this book). It was 100% practical advice, zero self-promotion. At the end, I mentioned “I run a venture builder where we apply these principles” and gave my contact info.

Three entrepreneurs from that talk joined our recruitment pipeline. One launched a company with us six months later.

The rule: If someone attends your talk and learns nothing, you’ve wasted their time and damaged your reputation. If they learn something valuable, they’ll remember you.

The Brand You Actually Need

Here’s what I’ve learned about builder branding: You don’t need to be famous. You need to be known by the right 100 people.

The right 100 people = talented entrepreneurs in your domain, investors who fund builders, partners who can refer opportunities.

When I meet a potential entrepreneur and they say “I’ve heard of you: I read your article on pricing strategy,” that’s a win. When an investor says “I’ve been following your quarterly updates,” that’s a win.

Mass market awareness is irrelevant. Targeted credibility is everything.

Building Credibility vs. Building Hype

There’s a temptation in startup ecosystems to inflate everything. “Leading venture builder,” “Top-tier portfolio,” “Disrupting innovation.”

Resist this.

Hype creates skepticism. Specificity creates credibility.

Compare:

“We’re a leading venture builder” → Who says? Prove it.
“We’ve built 7 companies in 3 years, 4 are profitable, 2 have raised external funding” → Concrete, verifiable, credible.

Compare:

“Our team has decades of experience” → Vague, meaningless.
“Our team has launched 12 companies, sold 3, and collectively raised $40M in venture funding” → Specific, impressive.

The second version is harder to write because it requires actual achievements. That’s the point. Credible brands are earned, not claimed.

Common Marketing Mistakes

Mistake 1: Inconsistency

Publishing two articles, hosting one event, then disappearing for six months. Marketing compounds over time, but only if you’re consistent.

Mistake 2: Copying accelerators

Accelerators have a different model and different marketing. Builders aren’t accelerators. Don’t market like one.

Mistake 3: Hiding your portfolio

“We can’t share who our portfolio companies are because of NDAs.” This screams “we have nothing to show.”

Get permission from founders to showcase their companies. If they won’t let you, that’s a bad sign.

Mistake 4: Marketing before you have proof

Don’t promote heavily until you have at least one successful portfolio company. Otherwise you’re making promises you can’t prove you’ll keep.

Start marketing when you have evidence: a company that’s launched, customers acquired, revenue generated, or funding raised.

Mistake 5: Trying to be everything to everyone

“We build companies in SaaS, hardware, biotech, marketplaces, and social impact.” Nobody will believe you’re good at all of those.

Pick a lane. Specialize. Market your specific expertise.

The Long Game

I launched our builder in 2016. We started marketing seriously in 2017. It took until 2019 before our brand had real recognition in our ecosystem.

Three years of consistent content, events, partnerships, and word-of-mouth before we reached the point where talented entrepreneurs were finding us instead of us finding them.

That’s normal. Brand building is slow.

But it compounds. Every article you write is findable forever. Every founder you help tells others. Every event you host expands your network.

The builder that’s been consistently visible for three years will always beat the builder that’s been invisible for two and suddenly tries to “do marketing” when they need to raise a fund.

Start promoting your builder from day one. Do it consistently. Do it honestly. And in three years, you’ll have a brand that attracts the exact people you want to work with.

If you’re running a venture builder and you haven’t thought seriously about marketing, you’re making it unnecessarily hard to recruit great entrepreneurs. Marketing isn’t optional: it’s how you compete for talent.

You don’t need a huge budget. You don’t need a marketing team. You need a commitment to show up consistently, share what you know, and build relationships over time.

The builders who do this attract better entrepreneurs, raise capital more easily, and build more valuable portfolios. The builders who don’t, struggle to recruit and wonder why nobody knows about them.

Which one do you want to be?