If founders ever needed another reason to spread the word about their startup on social media, here it is. According to a new study, unicorn startup CEOs who are more popular on Twitter and LinkedIn receive a whopping 20% more funding than their less popular peers.
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Consulting company Hard Numbers and media monitoring service CARMA analyzed more than 65,000 articles and 10,000 LinkedIn and Twitter messages from 64 British unicorns and their founders.
Projects valued at over $1bn and whose founders were in the top 20 most popular LinkedIn pages raised an average of £763m, more than 20% more than the average for the entire cohort. Among Twitter users, the difference was just 5.4%.
And it makes sense: in the UK, just 6% of unicorn CEOs and founders are not on LinkedIn, and 42% are not on Twitter.
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“People buy from people. And nowhere is that more true than in the venture capital world,” says Darryl Sparey, managing director and co-founder of Hard Numbers. “A strong LinkedIn and Twitter following is a great indicator of the potential future audience for a product or service — a startup may not have thousands of customers, but if the founder has hundreds of thousands of followers online, that’s a strong indication of potential future interest.”
Press coverage also correlates with increased funding.
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The study found that unicorn founders who had more (non-commercial) exposure also raised more. Founders in the top third of billion-dollar startups were mentioned in 23% of publications, while founders in the bottom third were mentioned in just 14%.
The “most social” of founders, Gymshark founder Ben Francis has a whopping 367,500 followers on LinkedIn – and has led an equally impressive funding round (the first ever) from General Atlantic, valuing the business at $1.45 billion.
The UK's most 'communicative' unicorn CEOs:
These data confirm the fact that often in the early days of a company's existence, it is the founder who remains its face.
“When capital is limited, founder branding can be one of the most cost-effective and compelling ways to simultaneously build your company’s brand — with investors, media, potential partners and recruits, and, of course, your user base,” OLIO founder Tessa Clark recently wrote.
Subscribe to RB.RU in Telegram
Consulting company Hard Numbers and media monitoring service CARMA analyzed more than 65,000 articles and 10,000 LinkedIn and Twitter messages from 64 British unicorns and their founders.
Projects valued at over $1bn and whose founders were in the top 20 most popular LinkedIn pages raised an average of £763m, more than 20% more than the average for the entire cohort. Among Twitter users, the difference was just 5.4%.
And it makes sense: in the UK, just 6% of unicorn CEOs and founders are not on LinkedIn, and 42% are not on Twitter.
Five methods for generating ideas for a new project - in a free practical course .
“People buy from people. And nowhere is that more true than in the venture capital world,” says Darryl Sparey, managing director and co-founder of Hard Numbers. “A strong LinkedIn and Twitter following is a great indicator of the potential future audience for a product or service — a startup may not have thousands of customers, but if the founder has hundreds of thousands of followers online, that’s a strong indication of potential future interest.”
Press coverage also correlates with increased funding.
Advertising
The study found that unicorn founders who had more (non-commercial) exposure also raised more. Founders in the top third of billion-dollar startups were mentioned in 23% of publications, while founders in the bottom third were mentioned in just 14%.
The “most social” of founders, Gymshark founder Ben Francis has a whopping 367,500 followers on LinkedIn – and has led an equally impressive funding round (the first ever) from General Atlantic, valuing the business at $1.45 billion.
The UK's most 'communicative' unicorn CEOs:
- Ben Francis (GymShark): 367.5k LinkedIn followers, £200m investment;
- James Watt (Brewdog): 331.2k LinkedIn followers, £320m in funding;
- Timo Boldt (Gousto): 25.1k LinkedIn followers, £271m in funding;
- Yoni Assia (eToro): 23,000 LinkedIn followers, £240m in investments;
- Orral Nadjari (Britishvolt): 8.8k LinkedIn followers, £1.83bn in funding.
These data confirm the fact that often in the early days of a company's existence, it is the founder who remains its face.
“When capital is limited, founder branding can be one of the most cost-effective and compelling ways to simultaneously build your company’s brand — with investors, media, potential partners and recruits, and, of course, your user base,” OLIO founder Tessa Clark recently wrote.