How to Start Building a Personal Brand as a Student

Charles Tenot is the CEO of Lemlist, the $33M bootstrapped B2B SaaS company behind LinkedIn favorites like Lemwarm, Taplio, and TweetHunter.

In this episode, he walks us through the transition from COO to CEO, what it’s like to follow a founder like Guillaume Moubeche, and how Lemlist builds brand without performance marketing.

He also unpacks his personal LinkedIn writing system (including how he gets post ideas on his motorbike), why repurposing content is underrated, and why shipping features again was key to breaking their $15M ARR plateau.

This one’s packed with stories and tactics from internal growth challenges to building a content-first culture that attracts top hires and drives 10:1 LTV to CAC.

What we cover:

- Charles’ transition from COO to CEO

- The honest truth about why Lemlist stopped growing and how they broke through

- How they restarted product velocity after 12 months of “tech debt”

- The Lemlist brand playbook: what it actually means to build trust

- Why Charles doesn’t believe in performance marketing (and what works instead)

- How he writes LinkedIn posts in 10 minutes

- His system for idea capture (Slack voice notes + ChatGPT for hook ideation)

- Why clickbait kills audience quality

- Internal content pods, incentives, and how Lemlist encourages employee posting

- Why he killed their SEO blog and what they replaced it with

Perfect for:

- B2B founders stuck at a revenue plateau

- CEOs looking to activate their teams on LinkedIn

- Marketing and brand leaders scaling a bootstrapped company

- Anyone trying to build trust in a noisy category

Connect with Charles:

- Charles’ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlestenot/

- lemlist: https://lemlist.com/

Connect with me:

Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/03CXzsZp7wdqIRVDcqPTFH

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finnthormeier/

Website: https://www.project33.io/

Chapters:

00:00 – LinkedIn is a game. Play it.

01:16 – Lemlist, Lempire, and $33M ARR

03:05 – What it’s like to take over as CEO

04:45 – The power of a “clear contract” when transitioning leadership

06:40 – Biggest lesson: trust your gut (even if the founder’s still around)

08:37 – Why Charles started posting on LinkedIn (and what pissed him off)

10:44 – Why personal branding helps attract top hires

12:38 – Can you track LinkedIn ROI? Not really. Here’s what to measure instead.

13:55 – Charles’ full posting system: ideation, hooks, writing, time spent

16:15 – The difference between engagement and quality (and how to balance)

18:37 – How he gets ideas on a motorbike (and his Slack system for saving them)

20:54 – “Done is better than perfect” The mindset for scaling content

23:00 – Why Charles doesn’t repurpose content (but why you probably should)

24:23 – Guillaume’s advice, and why you need your own voice

26:40 – “Why should anyone care what you write?” (Especially if you're early)

28:40 – Why every company should think like a niche content brand

30:55 – Internal pods, incentives, and how Lemlist encourages posting

34:33 – How Guillaume helps team members write—and why some say no

36:57 – Why they stopped paying employees for impressions

38:13 – 10:1 LTV to CAC – How Lemlist drives growth with brand

40:32 – Why they killed their SEO content

42:45 – What actually builds a trustworthy brand (from sales to product)

44:48 – Breaking through the ARR plateau: what finally worked

46:47 – Why complex orgs have lagging feedback loops

48:32 – “Ship something every month that excites the customer”

50:34 – How to build a personal brand when you’re just getting started

52:38 – Use your lack of experience as your brand

54:45 – “Do cool shit and talk about it”—Content advice for students and juniors

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