What founder content to shoot
a concrete shot list for founders: six videos worth filming this week, the format each takes per platform, and what never to film.
last updated 30 August 2026
shoot six things: the problem story, the demo in your own voice, the decision video, the numbers-with-context video, the user story retold, and the honest failure. all six point at your users, not at other founders. film them vertical on your phone, raw over polished, and skip the day-in-my-life filler entirely. that list is enough content for six weeks.
The problem story
start here because it is the one video no competitor can copy. thirty to sixty seconds on why this app needs to exist: the moment you hit the problem yourself, or watched someone hit it, and what was broken about every existing option. no feature list, no download link in the script. the problem story does the positioning work every ad has to pay for, and it gives every later video a spine to hang on.
The demo in your own voice
not a screen recording with captions and stock music. you, talking over your app doing the one thing it does best, in the words you would use showing a friend. include the actual taps, the loading moments, the imperfect bits. a founder demo converts differently from a produced one because the viewer is watching a person vouch for their own work, and that reads instantly. i test 150+ ad creatives a month for client apps, and the pattern behind raw beating polished holds just as hard when the person on camera built the thing.
The decision video
why we built X and not Y. the feature you cut, the pricing you rejected, the platform you are deliberately ignoring. tradeoffs are the most credible content a founder has, because only someone actually building the product can talk about what it cost to choose. users trust products whose makers can explain their own reasoning, and this format is where that reasoning becomes public.
The numbers-with-context video
a number is filler until you attach what it means. “10,000 downloads” is a flex. “10,000 downloads and 400 people used it twice, here is what we are fixing” is a story a viewer can learn from and a user can believe. share the number with its cost, its surprise or its lesson, and only ever share numbers that are true. the context is the content; the number is just the hook.
The user story retold
take a real user message, review or support ticket, get permission or strip anything identifying, and retell it with the user as the hero. what they were stuck on, what they tried, what happened. this is the founder-content version of social proof: it shows prospective users someone like them, and it shows existing users you actually read what they send. never invent one. a fabricated user story is the fastest way to torch the exact trust this whole channel exists to build.
The honest failure
the launch that flopped, the feature nobody used, the week the metrics went backwards. shot plainly: what broke, what it cost, what changed because of it. failure content is scarce because it is uncomfortable, which is precisely why it earns disproportionate trust and reach. one rule: it has to be a real failure with a real lesson, not a humblebrag wearing a sad hook.
Formats per platform
- TikTok, Reels, Shorts: vertical, 20 to 60 seconds, the point stated in the first two seconds, captions burned in. this is where users actually are, so every one of the six shots gets cut for it first.
- LinkedIn: text does the work, video attached. open with the single strongest line from the video, write the story in your own words, let the clip carry the proof.
- X: the clip plus a plain text version of the same idea. decision videos and failure stories work as short threads where each post is one beat.
What not to shoot
day-in-my-life filler, motivational fluff, hustle-culture monologues, trend audio with no point, podcast-clip cosplay where you interview yourself. all of it can get views, none of it gets users, because it attracts people who want vibes from a founder, not a solution from an app. the test for every video before you film it: would a person with the problem my app solves care about this. if the honest answer is no, it is not founder content, it is content about a founder.
start with the problem story this week, then work down the list. the full method lives in the founder content playbook. the breakdown call is free. Let’s talk Growth.
this page is part of the Founder content playbook.