Have you heard of Shravan Tickoo, Shreyas Doshi, and Diego Granados? If not, let me provide a brief introduction.
Shravan Tickoo, now the founder of Rethink Systems, started by posting funny content on LinkedIn about product management and product managers. His content was simple, relatable, and fun to read, depicting the relationship of a product manager with engineering, design, and other stakeholders. He currently has 165,615 followers on LinkedIn and his YouTube channel has 41K subscribers.
Shreyas Doshi is a product management veteran who worked at internet giants such as Stripe, Twitter, Google, and Yahoo. In the last few years, he has also moved into advising, coaching, teaching, writing, and speaking. He has taught 4000+ senior product people and founders and advised 100+ founders. And all of this started with posting actively on LinkedIn. His content questions traditional product management and provides legitimate solutions.
Diego Granados, a product manager at Google, covers how to get into product management, product management interview preparations, and PM frameworks. However, I have been following his content on LinkedIn since he was a Senior Product Manager at LinkedIn. He has 152,887 followers on LinkedIn and 43K subscribers on YouTube.
In addition to their regular jobs, all three of these individuals focused on building their personal brand. They shared their perspectives and built a loyal audience. And it didn’t take much time for them to monetize this audience via courses and other digital assets.
Shravan, Shreyas, and Diego are just a few examples; there are tons of other product managers who work 9-5 but use their 5-9 to build their brand.
Take myself. I quit Zalando in 2022 and got into freelance product management. Since then, I have branched out into product management writing for LogRocket, product management tutoring at CareerFoundry, and product management resume writing on Fiverr.
However, it was only in October of last year that I focused on building my brand by sharing content on LinkedIn. I have had multiple project leads, and speaking opportunities, and built relationships with some very interesting and cool people.
In this article, I want to share some insights on how you can also build your personal brand.
Layoffs are everywhere and can happen to the best of us. If there’s one thing I learned in the last few years of leaving Zalando, it’s that you need multiple income sources. You just can’t rely on your job alone. But how do you build income sources?
There are multiple ways — one is to do another job. But no one indeed has the energy or willingness to do two jobs.
So a different path is to build digital assets and sell them. It could be courses, “how to” PDFs, or consulting. But this path requires a loyal audience that believes in you and your knowledge.
This is where personal branding comes into play. You build a brand, much like how companies build their own. Below are a few more reasons why you should consider building your personal brand in 2025:
When you build your brand it attracts top-tier connections — VCs, founders, CPOs, senior product managers, and product managers. These relationships open doors to better jobs, side projects, and job opportunities.
Interestingly, I connected with a senior product manager at Zalando in 2016 and told him how much I wanted to work for Zalando. He was kind enough to refer me and that’s how I moved countries and got an opportunity to experience a completely different life abroad as an adult from an Indian middle-class family.
Product management as a profession has become very competitive. For one job there are more than 500 applications. How do you distinguish yourself? By building a personal brand.
Note that having a personal brand doesn’t guarantee a job but it sure builds trust. If there’s a tie between two PMs — one who doesn’t have a personal brand while the other has a strong one — the hiring manager tends to lean towards the latter.
The best PMs don’t just rely on a resume. A personal brand means if you want to pivot into consulting, coaching, or entrepreneurship, you already have an audience that trusts you. This was the case for me when I pivoted to freelance product management from a full-time job at Zalando.
I did a 100-day writing challenge on Medium and a 30-day writing challenge on LinkedIn that got me my first freelance project collaboration.
A personal brand is the perception people have of you based on your work, ideas, and opinions. It’s about your own unique value proposition — what you stand for, what expertise you bring, how much knowledge you have about a specific topic, and how you differentiate yourself from other PMs. It’s also how people talk about you when you’re not in the room — whether it’s hiring managers, colleagues, or industry peers.
In 2025, when AI is automating almost every part of product management, a strong personal brand helps to showcase strategic thinking, leadership, and storytelling — something that none of the AI can do, at least as of now.
But is personal branding similar to online presence?
In my opinion, online presence is just a small part of a personal brand.
Here’s how I describe it:
First things first, building a personal brand requires patience, time, and sometimes money. If you don’t have the third option, it’s okay, but without the first two options, you won’t succeed. You build your employer’s brand from 9-5 and build your brand from 5-9.
Here’s a step-by-step process to build your personal brand:
This is how you will also find your niche or unique value proposition. Below are a few questions that will help you find out what problem to solve:
Depending on this, you can come up with a mission statement that stays the same across all social media platforms.
Some examples of mission statements are:
A clear, short and concise vision will help you stay focused and distinguish yourself from competition.
Your personal brand is only valuable if it resonates with the right people. Remember, a small targeted audience is much more effective than a big random audience. Ask yourself the following questions to identify your target audience:
For my ghostwriting service, my target audience is European CEOs and founders. I gear career insights for aspiring PMs towards newbie PMs who have recently graduated.
Having the right target audience will help you build content accordingly. This’ll also help you to understand where do they spend more time — LinkedIn, X, YouTube, Medium, Instagram, etc.
This is the most important part. This is where you’ll have to find and focus on one platform. Depending on what kind of content you want to create you can select one of these platforms:
I believe this is the best platform to start with. It’s ideal for career-focused, thought leadership content. All types of PMs ranging from junior to CPO use LinkedIn.
Best for:
I haven’t used X much but from what I understand it’s a great platform for bite-size content. Threads on X can be used to write structured posts. X can also serve as a secondary platform to drive traffic to your primary platform (LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.).
Best for:
This platform requires more resources and time simply because videos are more difficult than writing. That said, it can be perfect for visual learners and those who prefer consuming long-form video content.
If you’re comfortable on camera and want to create content like tutorials, live product demos, or interviews with other PMs, YouTube is your platform. I remember watching Dianna Yau’s videos when I was preparing for Meta.
Best for:
One of my other favorite platforms is Medium. It’s a great platform for writing long-form articles, guides, and case studies.
Best for:
Once you’ve chosen your platform, commit to consistency. Whether it’s writing weekly posts on LinkedIn, creating daily threads on Twitter, or sharing monthly in-depth articles on Medium, the key to growing your brand is regular, consistent content creation.
Also make sure you engage with your audience. Find patterns in the type of comments you get and the questions people ask. These connections will come into picture when you actually need them.
Here are some common pitfalls and mistakes to avoid when creating your personal brand:
This has been my biggest takeaway. Posting on one day and then disappearing for a month won’t build your personal brand. It’s showing up every day or week. Figure out your schedule and stick to it no matter what. Planning your work one week in advance will help.
The end goal should be to provide value with your content and solve specific problems of your target audience rather than just showcasing your wins or boasting your success. In fact, users crave stories about failure and learning. So don’t focus on self-promotion, focus on solving problems.
Get inspired but don’t copy others. Authenticity matters and in today’s times when anyone can use ChatGPT to churn out content, it’s even more important to showcase your raw self. Find your voice and stick to it.
A strong brand isn’t just about posting — it’s about interacting and contributing. Make sure you respond to comments and inquiries and use them as input to build your brand.
With the inclusion of AI in day-to-day life, building your personal brand has become easier than ever. The barriers to entry are super low as platforms like LinkedIn, X, Medium and YouTube are free to use.
That said, you can’t just build a personal brand overnight. People like Shreyas Doshi have been doing it for years. Start with one post, one video, or even one image and they make sure you remain consistent.
Share in the comments how you plan to build your personal brand in 2025.
Featured image source: IconScout
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