The dynamic Pomp, who leads with the Twitter philosophy, “My rules of business: Build shit people want, never give up, avoid assholes, question assumptions, learn new ideas & always reward ambition,” shares his thoughts on the importance of building a personal brand, learning about the world as a “student,” seeking patterns and insight in unlikely places, traversing a new digitized world, and what he looks for when investing.
Highlights
- For startups and enterprises alike, building a compelling brand is an important exercise. Pomp describes developing a brand as, “putting a magnet out there” to attract like-minded people and build a community around ideas (rather than trying to go find them).
- Pomp is a master of personal branding and is known for his short quips and catchy tweets. So how does he consume and output information? The answer is by viewing the investing world as a “student” and approaching it from space from a place of intellectual curiosity.
- Pomp extolls the importance of exploring social platforms, listening to podcasts, consuming content to understand topics, and stances on specific issues. By consuming a veritable soup of media – weaving together data and information – to strengthen your brand’s magnet and not getting stuck in an echo chamber.
- Because of his preternatural investing abilities, we asked him what he looks for when making an investment. He says it’s about the founder, not a company because a company is a manifestation of what they’re doing. The company will change over time as the marketplace changes so you’re betting on the founder. The founder should be resilient, well-rounded, and a good salesperson.
- At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that you build things that people want, which means drilling down to what actually matters.
- Everything is digitized. Adding connectivity, opening the world to automation. Every business is now an online business first. Having that mentality is important.
Pomp offers an upbeat “bullish humanity” perspective that inspires forward-thinking ideas. Listen to the full episode now.
