Land in VC

Land in VC

Personal brand is the most important thing on this new ERA

Harry Stebbings built 20VC to 150 million listeners. Started with no fund, no brand, and no connections in the industry; just a microphone, a very specific topic and an almost unreasonable consistency

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Conrad
Feb 19, 2026
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A few months ago, a founder I had never met sent me a cold DM on LinkedIn.

“I read your post on Should you jump into VC right after undergrad? Wanted to connect.”

He wasn’t looking for money and he wasn’t pitching anything. He just wanted to talk to the person behind the writing.


Something Shifted

I have been paying close attention to Barcelona’s startup ecosystem for a couple of years now, first as an outsider trying to break in, and more recently as someone lucky enough to be inside.

And in that time, I have watched something quietly change.

The smartest people in the room are no longer necessarily the ones winning.

The most visible ones are — and I do not mean visible in the sense of posting every day or chasing engagement.

I mean visible in the sense that when someone hears their name, they already have context. They already know what that person stands for.

That shift is real, and most people chasing VC roles have not caught up to it yet.


What Personal Brand Actually Means in This Industry

There is a myth worth killing early.

Personal brand is not a polished LinkedIn profile or a newsletter with a nice logo.

And it is definitely not a catchy bio or a perfectly formatted market map. Those things are packaging, and packaging alone does not move the needle.

Personal brand comes down to one question: does your thinking travel without you? When you are not in the room, do people reference your work? When a GP or a founder hears your name for the first time, do they already have a frame for who you are and how you think?

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