The Road to UNBOUND - Four Weeks Out: Two First-Timers, and the Mathematics of One

Anybody can build anything and vibe code it now. There have been copycats of what I built, similar tools, all of it. One thing that cannot be vibe coded is reputation and knowledge. Even if this falls flat on its face, I still have my entire LinkedIn repository of posts, my community, my network, and all of the people I have met on this journey. Who knows where I will be in three years, or five. That is why the content matters.

Here is the thing I want to say to anyone who does not feel ready to create content. The problem probably has zero to do with content and everything to do with confidence. Realize you are good enough. Realize that you are adding value. Realize that the people on the other side do not care about your nose, your belly, your ears, your bald head, whatever it is. They care about the words coming out of your mouth. If you can get confident enough to create the content to help the humans, you will win every time.

There is something to be said about just embracing who you are. So many founders are scared of posting. Scared of telling their story. What will other people think? What will my friends think, my family? Share your thoughts. Share your stories. Especially at an event like UNBOUND. Two or three months down the road, something you shared there might get picked up, because who knows how the algorithm even works. Embrace the cringe.

I have been creating content in the HubSpot ecosystem for a while, and there are a couple of things I had to plant in my brain and let grow. The first one is the mathematics of one. I will create this piece of content if only one human sees it and gets value out of it. There is something liberating when that is what you are chasing. The value you are adding to a human being, instead of the algorithm, which can change on a moment's notice.

I met my UNBOUND buddy in person this week and we made a run of content in a coffee shop. Here is how it works. Start with where you are. What you are drinking, because people want to know that. Then, what are we doing here, and how did we even get here. So much of creating content is just documentation of what is really happening. The angles and the stories come after.

If you are stepping onto a stage at UNBOUND, or any stage on the planet, here is the advice. You are building a forty-five or ninety minute journey. The two main things you need to know are where to take off and where to land. In between, you are going to have to pivot. You are going to step off stage even though you have never stepped off stage. You are going to touch somebody's shoulder because you feel an emotional connection to that human in that moment. Give yourself the freedom, earned by all the times you ran it through, to go completely away from your presentation. You already know where you are landing.

I am going to be vulnerable here. I have been having a lot of internal discussions with myself about whether I should do branded merchandise for UNBOUND. It goes two ways. I want to have genuine conversations. I am not there to promote myself or sell myself, I am there to build my network and meet people. So what is holding me back from showing up in a branded t-shirt is this. When you step into that conversation with somebody, does the other party feel that is authentic or inauthentic?

When you have some tools, you just do it, and then you let the pieces fall where they may. The underlying thread of all content creation is human connection. In the world of AI, we are thirsty for connection and for stories. I am coming to UNBOUND for the first time. My buddy has been almost every time. We are going to have two different stories, from two perspectives, and both are going to be valuable. That is what to focus on, versus the engagement metrics.

If serendipity is the winner, then zero expectations going in has to be the rule. Just go there. Just be there. And just create while you are there. That is it. What happens will happen. And everything that you want to measure will be able to be measured once it is done. Zero expectations.