I saw the writing on the wall very early on and just kind of knew I needed to focus on something else. And so what was interesting about LinkedIn is I grew very quickly on there. Um, following a very similar footprint as in terms of how I grew my websites, just like dig, you built this big network.
LinkedIn was very similar. You know, you have all these users and creators and they’re all supporting each other’s content. Um, so the following there grew very quickly. In the first year, I think it was like 25, 000 followers or so. And then all of a sudden people are asking me about coaching. And since all my content was very entrepreneurial, I used to just sit in my backyard and take videos.
Um, I was kind of known as the guy who wore t shirts in the snow. That was sort of like my gimmick a long time ago. Um, and then, uh, so the LinkedIn account grew, but at that time I was still doing both the sites and LinkedIn. LinkedIn. And I got to admit, I sort of burnt out on coaching. Um, and I sort of took almost like a year and a half, two year hiatus from LinkedIn.
And all the while that’s when I sold the website. That’s when I saw organic traffic tank, this, this, everything sort of happened. And I was like, you know what? I’m going to give LinkedIn another shot. And. While I was always active on there, I wasn’t really posting content as regularly as I used to or really pushing as much as I had used to.
So January 2023, I kind of went all in and I went just ballistic and was just on the platform hours and hours a day, just trying to figure it out. Uh, things grew. Somehow I wound up meeting who my current business partner is. I went on his podcast. He had this podcast called, I took a hike and we took a hike and, uh, we really got along and, uh, it was January of 2024 when we started brand built, which is basically a company, it’s a business and branding community, and we help people, uh, grow their brands organically, uh, and leverage those brands to grow their business and build their relationships.
