Michael Houck

85,000+ founders read my free weekly newsletter. Follow me to learn about startups and venture capital.

I didn't know what a startup was until after college. I wasn't lucky with connections or mentors.

But within a few years my startup raised $23 million from a16z + other investors.

Along the way I:
· Cold emailed my way into an early role at Uber Eats
· Got laid off by Airbnb during COVID
· Built an audience of ~100K across LinkedIn and X
· Started a coliving residency for startup founders in Tulum
· Co-founded a venture fund and made over 50+ early stage investments (incl. Figure and Beehiiv)

More recently I've bootstrapped my personal holdco from $0 to $100K MRR in under 2 years. We help founders through content, connections, capital, and services:

· megaphonestudio.com → let my content agency build your newsletter or social media audience
· megaphone.network → partner with big creators in your niche

· join.foundingjourney.com → get my weekly playbooks and advice alongside 75k founders (for free)
· upgrade.foundingjourney.com → get ~100 fundraising case studies from founders I interviewed
· go.foundingjourney.com/fundraising → get connected with investors (including me)

I'm also building a new YouTube channel. Here's a recent video on the history of Silicon Valley: youtu.be/alUQxEldEMM

Founder

A weekly newsletter designed to help you build, grow, and raise capital for your startup.

Daniel Markovits

Creators + Community + Sports @ LinkedIn | Venture Scout | I help CEOs, execs, VCs, athletes & brands stand out and build authority

I’m a community builder and strategist obsessed with how people - founders, execs, athletes, creators - show up online and build trust at scale.Today, as CCO at Shake, I help B2B founders turn their ideas, experiences, and point of view into a content engine that drives authority, credibility, and long-term organic demand. We call it founder-led marketing: using the founder’s voice as the most powerful acquisition channel a business has. When done right, it makes sales easier, trust faster, and brand-building more human.Before Shake, I spent years at LinkedIn shaping how top leaders show up on the platform. I worked across editorial, product, and creator partnerships. Onboarding world-class talent like Lewis Hamilton, helping executives communicate with clarity and personality, and launching scaled video programs that grew community engagement across markets. I’ve supported 500+ high-impact members, from CEOs to rising operators, helping them grow their audience, sharpen their story, and build influence that actually moves people.My path has never been linear.. I’ve simply followed what made me curious: how communities form, how stories spread, and how the right piece of content can unlock opportunities for people. That curiosity has taken me from Tel Aviv to London and through roles that mix editorial instinct, product thinking, and deep talent partnership.At the core, my work has stayed the same:I help people communicate with more clarity, more confidence, and more humanity - so they can build the kind of presence that opens doors.If you care about founder-led marketing, storytelling, or the future of how leaders build trust online, we’re already speaking the same language.

Co-Founder

Club created to serve as a continuous bond between the diaspora community and the State of Israel.

• Successful crowdfunding campaign & world wide media coverage
• 150+ players from 25 different countries 
• Currently in Liga Gimel (5th division) of the Israeli Football League

Dani Markovits

LinkedIn just became even more important.

AI systems like ChatGPT, Google AI, and Perplexity now cite LinkedIn as their second most-referenced domain

(right after Reddit and ahead of Wikipedia).

This has huge implications for your business.

When potential clients ask AI: 'Who are the leading experts in (your industry)?' or 'what companies should I trust for (your service)?, the answer is being shaped by LinkedIn content right now.

Discovery is shifting:
➡️ From search → to synthesis
➡️ From ads → to authority
➡️ From brand pages → to people with real track records and opinions

This is especially important/relevant for businesses built on trust: B2B, tech, professional services, finance, cyber, healthcare, and more.

Your thought leadership isn't just building your personal brand anymore. It's training the AI systems that are pre-qualifying you before prospects ever reach your website.

The decision is being made in the AI conversation, not on your homepage.

This is exactly why, at Shake Content, we focus so heavily on helping founders and execs show up with real expertise, real stories, and real perspective.

bottom line: your prospects are having conversations with AI whether you like it or not.

The opportunity? This shift is still early. Most of your competitors aren't thinking this way yet.

s/o to Irina Novoselsky & Becca Chambers for already beating this drum👏

CCO @ Shake Content | Ex LinkedIn | I help CEOs, execs, VCs & brands stand out and build authority on LinkedIn

7 foolproof ways to go viral on LinkedIn (you’re welcome)

because people always ask me how to go viral and I take my research seriously.

1) Announce a 'hot take' that is not hot 
"People should be paid fairly and meetings are too long." Boom, you are a thought leader

2) Add a completely unnecessary selfie
Ideally: in a car or at an airport

3) Ask a question that forces people to expose their souls
My favorites: 'Is this just me?' and 'What would you do?'
Now Steve from HR is sharing his childhood in the comments. Engagement secured

4) Sell something but pretend you are not
Classic: 'Not selling anything, just sharing in case it helps.'
Link in comments to:
newsletter, webinar, ebook, course, startup, dog’s startup

5) Start with 'I'm going to regret posting this...' 
You wont. You workshopped this for three days and sent it to three group chats.

6) Line breaks. So. Many. Line. Breaks.
If your post looks like a normal paragraph, the algorithm gets suspicious.

Every thought.
Must feel.
Profound.

7) Use the phrase 'Let that sink in'
After stating something extremely obvious.
Let that sink in.

ps: I am probably guilty as charge of all of the above 🤪 

Real talk now: Going viral is fine. But being remembered for saying something true/different/insightful is way better.

Had a great catch-up with Jason Jung 정세진 at the Netflix office yesterday. 

We first met when I was at LinkedIn and he was at TikTok. Now he’s at Netflix and I’m building Shake. 

Funny how much changes, and how much doesn’t.

Still talking creators, content and platforms… just with different logos behind us.

Grateful for friends who work at places with great offices and free snacks 😆

It's not just you. More people are actually spending time on LinkedIn now.

And I'm weirdly happy about that.

I spent 4 years at LinkedIn, and a big part of what my team pushed for (even if it was never officially called this) was changing the premise that people only used the platform to look for a job.

And you can see it now. 

People scrolling on the tube/subway. Checking in daily (sometimes just for the games). Athletes sharing opinions, not just sponsorships. Founders talking openly about what's working and what isn't.

The WSJ shared an interesting article this week.

Apparently, inside LinkedIn there were constant debates about whether the platform should allow handles instead of real names.

And according to Gyanda Sachdeva (VP of Product), the question kept coming up: “Should we add handles?”

But the team always came back to the same answer — stick with real identities to protect trust.

And I'm glad they did.

Because when your name and reputation are attached to what you post, you show up differently. You think a bit more. You try to add something useful. 

That’s also why founder-led marketing works so well here.

LinkedIn isn’t perfect, but sticking with real identities might be one of the smartest decisions they ever made.

Full article here (worth the read) - https://lnkd.in/ewZ32kXJ

Everyone keeps asking me:

Should we invest in organic or paid on LinkedIn?

(and I think we're asking the wrong question)

They're not competing strategies, they work together.

Organic is your audition.
Test your messages, angles, and formats with 'zero' risk. See what actually makes people stop scrolling. What gets real comments, not just friendly likes. What people save or share.

If something doesn't work organically, paid won't save it. You'll just pay to help more people ignore it.

Paid is your amplifier.
Once you know what resonates, that's when you invest. Put budget behind what's already proven. Extend its reach. Get it in front of more of the right people.

Now you're not guessing (you are just scaling what works).

Most companies do this backwards. They create something, skip the test, and immediately spend money promoting it. Then they're surprised when it underperforms.

The issue usually isn't the targeting. It's that the message was never validated.

Better approach:
Let your audience tell you what's working first. 

Then amplify it.

Adam Mosseri just dropped 1,000+ words on AI's impact on creators and social media.

The most important line (imo) was:

'The internet already shifted power from institutions to individuals'

He's talking about Instagram - but this shift is already happening on LinkedIn.

CEOs are outperforming their company pages by 10x
Founder posts get more engagement than brand campaigns
Executive voices drive more pipeline than corporate content

As AI makes content easy to produce, what becomes scarce is: perspective

Real stories, real insights from real people.

The question shifts from 'can you create?' to 'can you create something only you could create?'

That's exactly what founder-led content does.

Your career pivots
Your failures
Your 3am decisions.

AI can replicate format but it can’t replicate lived experience.

This is the premise behind our work at Shake Content

Not because it’s trendy.. but because when everything looks the same, who it comes from is what matters.

---

Adam's full post here: OP Here: https://t.co/VGruvVXiSQ

The “who” is becoming more important than the “what”

What you say matters. But who says it now matters more.

This is the biggest shift I am seeing in 2026.

In the age of AI, credibility beats content.

Recent data shows that AI systems like ChatGPT and Perplexity are now citing LinkedIn 4–6x more than they were just a few months ago. And around 80% of those citations come from content written by real people on LinkedIn (not company pages).

That’s big.

AI isn’t only asking: Is this information relevant? It is asking: Who is saying this, and should I trust them?

LinkedIn makes that easy. Your role. Your experience. Your track record. Your network. All verifiable in seconds.

Which means the internet is shifting from: 
websites as sources → people as sources.

This is becoming one of the most important priorities for our clients, and exactly why, at Shake Content, we focus so heavily on founder and executive voice.

Source: https://lnkd.in/ezWsTazM

Hot take for 2026:

Your company shouldn’t act like a corporate page.
It should operate like ESPN.

ESPN doesn’t just run one show announcing scores. They have:
1/ First Take (debate and hot takes)
2/ SportsCenter (news + highlights)
3/ 30 for 30 (deep storytelling)
4/ Around the Horn (rotating expert panels)

Each show has distinct personalities. People tune in for Stephen A. Smith not 'ESPN Corporate Communications'

So why is your LinkedIn strategy just one bland corporate feed?

📺 Here’s the play for 2026
- Your VP of Product should be breaking down roadmap decisions like they're analyzing draft picks

- Your Lead Designer should be showing works-in-progress and debating design philosophy like it's film study

- Your Customer Success team should be sharing war stories from the trenches (not just case studies)

- Your Data Scientist should be dropping insights that make people stop scrolling

One corporate voice = changing the channel
Multiple expert voices = must-watch content

Give your experts their own shows. Let them have a point of view. Let them disagree with each other sometimes. Let them be interesting.

Nobody remembers the NBA's official press releases.

But everyone remembers the analysts who had something real to say about the game.

We don't talk enough about the work we do with our clients.

So here's what happened when we partnered with shipshape.vc & Daniel Sawko.

Shipshape is an investor search engine that's helped 4,000+ companies raise over £1bn. They aggregate data from 25,000+ global funds and layer in private growth signals to show founders where capital is actually moving.

Their CEO, Daniel, had a strong LinkedIn presence but was frustrated by how much time quality content required. The platform had genuinely differentiated data, but the challenge was making that value immediately clear to both founders raising capital and institutional buyers.

What we focused on:
We stripped away feature-heavy messaging and built founder-led storytelling around:
- Why private growth signals matter in fundraising
- How attribution and precision targeting translate into ROI
- Making complex value propositions instantly understandable

Content became a dual-purpose asset - educating at the top of the funnel while supporting mid-cycle sales conversations.

The results over 4 months:
60% increase in impressions
44% increase in engagements 
13% follower growth 
30% uplift in platform signups vs. the prior period

That last metric is the one that matters. The content didn't just build awareness.. it drove adoption.

As Daniel put it: "We've got relevant insights to share, but finding the time was always challenging. Working with Shake Content has made content easy - we're producing studio-grade video content and tapping into new channels like YouTube."

This is what happens when you turn a technically powerful product into clear, consistent storytelling. Content becomes a growth driver, not just a brand exercise.

Excited to see where Shipshape goes next.

The full case study is here: https://lnkd.in/e-a_uJHZ

More context. Less urgency.

My friend George Mack once shared this take that went viral.. and honestly, it’s pretty bang on.

For a long time, I saw that as a bad thing about LinkedIn.

Boring. 
Too slow.
Always catching up.
Not where new ideas start.

But lately.. I have started to see it differently.

Maybe LinkedIn isn’t where things break first. But it might be the best place to actually make sense of them.

There are plenty of places to spot trends early: Twitter/X, Reddit, TikTok, Discord, group chats, wherever.

We're drowning in real-time takes. Every platform is racing to be first. Everyone is trying to go viral. 

LinkedIn's 'slowness' is starting to feel like the thing we might actually need.

So yeah, George is right. If it's big on LinkedIn, you're definitely late. 

But late to the hype means early to the insight.

taplio

The Battle

Michael Houck

Dani Markovits

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taplio

The Battle

Michael Houck

Dani Markovits

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Dani Markovits's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

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