Elon Musk- Just a Brand?

Why you should build value projects instead of a personal brand

I was speaking with a friend some weeks ago who argued against the idea of a personal brand. He says most people today use personal branding as a get-rich-quick scheme, hiding behind headshot photos and some fancy one-liners on their profiles.

I agree.

While personal branding is not in itself a bad thing, what most people get wrong is the motive behind it. It becomes a mistake to think personal branding can become a replacement for competence.

You can’t pour water from an empty cup.

Value projects as an alternative to personal brands

A value project is proof of your creative expression and competence on the internet. It’s a means of extending what you enjoy doing to a wider audience, doesn’t matter if you love cooking or photography or if you’re a software engineer. A value project ensures you place value first which is a better alternative to personal branding.

Benefits of creating value projects

• Build Mastery:

  Contrary to popular belief. The best masters are not those who spend years learning a craft, it’s about the quality of learning you were able to develop during the time spent.

  it’s not 10,000 hours, it’s 10,000 iterations

What better way to aid quality learning than to create value projects on your subject?

It’s also important to note that you don’t need to be an expert to start a value project, any point in your learning journey is a great time to start. The more value projects you create, the better you get.

• Build Wealth:

  I found this short clip of Dylan, CEO of Figma during his early days of pitching and how he came about the product idea for Figma.

credits: Youtube

He sold Figma for +$20 Billion in 2022.

• Build a personal brand:

  Yes, a personal brand sounds cringe but rather than it being about pushing yourself on people with irrelevant and empty content, you are providing valuable solutions to real problems, a personal brand just becomes an offshoot of your contribution (Elon Musk comes to mind).

  Instead of building a personal brand, build value projects.

The “Elon Musk” of this world didn’t start out with branding, they focused on solving problems. You can do the same and do a lot of good with it! And the larger, more difficult, and more resilient value projects you can build, the more good you can do. Maybe, you’ll be able to build a 20 Billion dollar company as Dylan did, maybe not. But you’ll be extending your creative expression to others just like you.

Till next week,

Ben