11 Million Followers, a Burnout, and What He Learned with Swish Goswami

<p>He built a basketball media brand to 11 million followers, sold a company, and still ended up burnt out at 23. My guest today, Swish Goswami, has lived that whole arc, and this conversation is about what he tore down and rebuilt afterward.</p><p>Swish has been building companies since he was a kid running an imaginary investment bank out of notebooks for his grandparents. He dropped out of university, co-built Dunk into an 11 million follower basketball media brand, grew a personal brand as a LinkedIn top voice, co-founded and sold a data company called Surf, and is now building his newest company, Broker Plus. We talk about how he thinks about product market fit, why customer obsession beats a polished product every time, and how he actually recovered from the burnout that hit him in 2022 after scaling a 36 person team.</p><p>This one is useful if you care about linkedin thought leadership and how founders build authority without the flashy, look-at-me version of a personal brand. Swish makes a strong case that authenticity, not more content, is what actually works, and that linkedin content marketing only lands when it comes from a place that is genuinely you. We also get into why vulnerability is a strength, not a weakness, when you are building in public.</p><p>Build your founder brand with Mylance: https://mylance.co<br>Connect with Bradley Jacobs: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradley-r-jacobs/</p><p>00:00 Introducing Swish Goswami<br>01:15 Deciding to become an entrepreneur<br>02:45 Building Dunk to 11 million followers<br>04:08 Product market fit, Surf versus Broker Plus<br>06:25 Why customer obsession drives 80 percent of success<br>09:11 Building an internal tool to track feedback<br>12:34 Growing entirely through organic referrals<br>16:16 Hitting burnout in 2022<br>19:39 The intentional habits that changed<br>20:27 Building a personal brand without cringe<br>27:45 Shifting from distraction to focus<br>30:14 The one piece of advice for first time founders</p>