Image over impact: The founder’s dilemma

In an age where personal brands trend before prototypes exist, many founders are caught between image and impact.

Fashion entrepreneur Wandia Gichuru believes the business must outgrow the entrepreneur. “The brand should live beyond the founder’s reputation,” she said, explaining why Vivo Fashion Group doesn’t carry her name.

Her focus: build a company customers trust for its product, not its proximity to a personality. That decision allowed Vivo to scale without being tethered to a single identity.

Contrast that with today’s influencer economy, where personal clout often births businesses. For some sectors—fashion, entertainment—personality-driven branding works. But in B2B or tech, clients buy reliability, not celebrity.

In Episode 2 on scaling, we saw the tension: charisma can accelerate early traction but also bottleneck growth. The founder becomes the brand—and the business struggles when they step away.

So, what’s the way forward? I like to think of it as three brand arcs:

Founder-led brand—fast to ignite but risky for succession.

Product-led brand—slower to shine but easier to institutionalise.

Hybrid approach—time your visibility to operational maturity.

The third arc is hardest but most rewarding. Build substance first, then layer in visibility when systems can sustain the attention. As one founder said during the podcast: “The key is balancing branding and substantive operations.”

The allure of visibility is undeniable in a digital world. A strong founder persona can humanise a brand and attract opportunities.

In markets like Nigeria, figures such as Tony Elumelu and Aliko Dangote show how personal credibility can reinforce corporate power. But visibility without strong foundations is fragile—hype cannot substitute for substance.

Globally, some nations have gone further, embracing founder-led brands as strategic assets. Think of Samsung in South Korea or IKEA in Sweden—companies that began as personal visions but became symbols of national ingenuity and economic power.

Yet this conversation isn’t just about individuals, it’s cultural. During the show, I asked: why don’t Kenyan brands boldly say “Proudly Kenyan” like South Africans do with their national mark? For years, local consumers equated imports with quality.

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Some still hesitate to claim “Made in Kenya,” fearing it signals compromise. That perception is shifting, as we’ll explore in Part 2—but it reveals a deeper tension: what role should identity play in branding? Should founders lean on country pride or adopt a Pan-African identity to scale faster?

As we debated these questions, I kept thinking about the risk of optics without foundation. Social media rewards the loud, but businesses collapse quietly when hype outpaces execution. Visibility can open doors—but it can also open traps.

Founders who rush to become the face of their venture often discover the hard truth: you can’t scale yourself. You can’t hashtag your way out of structural flaws. Public appearances don’t fix a broken supply chain, a shaky balance sheet, or a weak team.

And yet, visibility isn’t inherently bad. In some cases, it accelerates trust. Consumers relate to people, not products. A compelling founder story can make investors listen, attract top talent, and inspire loyalty. It’s a powerful lever—if pulled at the right time and for the right reason. The question is sequencing: when does a founder lean in, and when do they step back?

That timing is everything. Get it wrong, and you risk being a brand without a backbone. Get it right, and you create something magnetic—a venture with a human story and a strong spine. In a world obsessed with image, substance has become a competitive advantage.

This two-part series explores that truth. In Part 2, we’ll go deeper—into the soul of the founder, the cultural psyche behind “Proudly Kenyan,” and what it takes to build brands that outlive their creators.

We’ll hear how companies like M-KOPA navigated identity, why Ian Ngethe of Raiser Group believes systems matter more than celebrity, and why embedding your essence into a brand is the only way to make it timeless.

We’ll also reflect on my own journey at Seven Seas Technologies, where I learned the cost of dreaming global in a system wired for imports.

Because in the end, this is about more than branding. It’s about legacy. And legacy begins with the choices we make long before the cameras flash.

Michael Anthony Macharia is a serial entrepreneur, founder of Seven Seas Technologies and Ponea Health