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- Adam Robinson's LinkedIn Playbook: Building a $30M ARR Bootstrapped Brand using only LinkedIn
Adam Robinson's LinkedIn Playbook: Building a $30M ARR Bootstrapped Brand using only LinkedIn
PLUS: I made $800k building silly apps (this is how)
Adam Robinson's LinkedIn Playbook: Building a $30M ARR Bootstrapped Brand using only LinkedIn
In an age where startups often scramble for funding, hire bloated teams, and throw money at paid channels, Adam Robinson quietly built a $30 million ARR empire by mastering a single platform: LinkedIn.
His companiesâRetention.com and RB2Bâdidnât ride a VC wave.
Instead, they rode the power of one manâs voice, repeated thousands of times across a feed that many founders still underestimate.
Adam's story is a roadmap for how modern founder-led brands can punch above their weight, build trust at scale, and turn personal authenticity into commercial momentum.
Adam recently shared his LinkedIn playbook on the Ahrefs Podcast.
He Had $13M ARR but No One Knew His Name
In 2022, Retention.com hit $13 million ARR with just six employees. At the time, the company had identified a dream customer profile: large Shopify brands.

Retention
These companies were a strong fit for their product, and it appeared they had something close to a unicorn on their hands.
But the question remained: how to reach them?
Adam initially evaluated Twitter, where some eCommerce operators were active. But LinkedIn stood out. Only about 2% of LinkedIn users actively post, which meant less competition and higher visibility for creators. So in January 2022, he began experimenting with postsânot to sell anything directly, but to make Shopify founders aware of his name.
That decision would define the next two years of his journey.
One Year of Posting Into the Void
The first year was frustrating. Despite posting consistently, Adam didnât see much in terms of direct ROI. His videos might get 20 likes and a couple thousand viewsânot exactly numbers that suggest massive reach or demo requests.
Still, something else was happening. People in the Shopify ecosystem began to recognize him. At trade shows, dozens of attendees approached him. His brand earned credibility, which helped with affiliate partnerships, recruiting, and general buzz. Even without leads, his effort was paying offâjust not in the most obvious way.
The takeaway was subtle but important: social media rarely converts immediately. But when used well, it creates trust, familiarity, and recognitionâpriceless ingredients in B2B.
Finding Content-Market Fit on LinkedIn
Adam describes content-market fit much like product-market fit: elusive, hard to define, but instantly recognizable once achieved. Early on, he felt directionless. As someone with a background in product and marketing, he found it unsettling not to know why his words werenât landing.
He credits Russell Brunson with a mindset shift. Brunson framed content not as a vehicle for immediate engagement, but as a search for voice. The key, Adam realized, wasnât the likesâit was getting one step closer to a voice that resonated.
Why a Founderâs Origin Story Beats Any Ad Campaign
Several seeds shaped Adamâs philosophy. One of them was Dave Gerhardtâs book Founder Brand. Gerhardtâs central thesisâthat the origin story of a company is often its most powerful marketing assetâclicked immediately.
Adam understood that modern attention is captured by people, not logos. A personal story, repeated consistently and authentically, could outperform any polished campaign. And while influencer-led startups were common in B2C, they were just beginning to take hold in B2B. The timing was right.
RB2B â 1 Founder, 4 People, $5M ARR in 13 Months
RB2B would be the proof of concept. With just four people, the company grew to $5 million ARR in 13 months. No paid ads. No outbound team. Just one founder posting daily on LinkedIn.

RB2B - Identify the actual people and companies on your website
His audience matched his ICP. His stories built trust. And his credibilityâbuilt on the back of 12 years in SaaS, including a $10 million exit from Robly emailâmade people pay attention.
This was not a fluke. It was strategy, compounding over time.
Spending $800K to buy a Domain Name
Adam didnât always believe personal branding was the only way. In fact, he spent $800,000 on the domain Retention.com to create what he hoped would be a more authoritative, scalable company brand.
But the results were underwhelming. Despite the domainâs gravitas, company-driven content failed to outperform his personal storytelling. The lesson was clear: social media is optimized for people, not logos.
He began to lean into a core principle: people are on social to connect with other people. Brands canât replicate the emotional resonance of a founder who shares real experiences, mistakes, and insights.
How Adam Manufactured Fame Like a 1950s PR Firm
Adamâs LinkedIn strategy is anchored in the idea that every founder is building a public figure. Itâs not unlike a PR agency crafting a public narrative in the 20th centuryâexcept now, the founder does it themselves.
The vehicle for that narrative is what LinkedIn creators call "content pillars": a set of consistent, repeatable themes. For Adam, those are bootstrapping, go-to-market strategies, working in public, and founder psychology. He posts variations on these themes over and over.
Authenticity is critical. Posts that resonate will also polarize. The same attributes that 80% of people love will drive 20% to criticism. This is why the content must be deeply authenticâbecause you need to be willing to defend it.
Hooks, Numbers, Credibility: Adam's LinkedIn Formula Unpacked
From a tactical standpoint, Adamâs approach to LinkedIn is rigorous. Every post begins with a strong hook. He wonât even write a post if he canât come up with a great opening line.
A mediocre post with a great hook outperforms a great post with a weak one. He borrows from journalism: spend as much time on the headline as the body.
His tactical playbook:
Use numbers: âBootstrapped 3 companies to $3M ARRâ gets attention.
Use money: Revenue, pipeline, leads, profitâall drive engagement.
Use credibility: If you havenât done the thing, borrow othersâ insights (the "Oprah framework").
Always post as if no one knows who you are: 85% of post views are from people who didnât see the last one.
Adam recommends tools like Kleo to analyze top posts and advises emulating high-performing formats with your own fact pattern.

Kleo - LinkedIn Chrome Extension
Adam specifically credits Tom Hunt for mastering hook-first writing. Tomâs content frequently goes viral not because of complexity, but because he nails the opening line and sticks to universal professional themes.

Tom Hunt - LinkedIn
Adam had Tom Wolfe on his podcast and studied how Tom structures polarizing hooks that scale across second- and third-degree audiences.
Chris Walker is another key influenceâRobinson modeled much of his philosophical and tactical approach after Walkerâs early content style. What stood out was Walkerâs discipline: repeating the same message through dozens of formats, hooks, and perspectives without fatigue. This showed Robinson that you donât need to invent new ideasâyou need to repackage the same core truths until they stick.

Chris Walker - LinkedIn
LinkedIn Templates That Scale
Adamâs early breakthroughs came from using simple listicle formats. Problem-solution posts, especially in numbered lists, performed well. Readers love structure, and posts with embedded takeaways perform better.
Though deep storytelling eventually drives more impact, starting with structured templates is a proven way to build early traction.
He advises aspiring creators to study his posts with 1,000+ likes and rewrite them using their own facts. Format matters more than originality.
Adam advises aspiring creators to study his posts with 1,000+ likes and rewrite them using their own facts. Nigel Thomas is a standout example of someone who systematized this.

Nigel Thomas - LinkedIn
Thomas built his LinkedIn strategy around modular templatesârepeatable structures that simplify writing while increasing engagement. Robinson points to Thomas as proof that consistency beats originality. If your content delivers value and credibility within a proven structure, audiences reward it over acts. Format matters more than originality. message through dozens of formats, hooks, and perspectives with
Adam initially used a ghostwriter to build his audience. This ghostwriter employed screenshot quotes and viral bait ("Do you agree?" over someone elseâs tweet), which helped him growâbut not always in the right way.
Eventually, he shifted focus. He realized he wasnât trying to get to 1 million followers. He was trying to earn the trust of his buying audience.
He borrowed a concept from Nathan Barry: the difference between audience and crowd. A crowd claps. An audience buys.
But it was Peter Confortiâs analysis that made the insight tactical. Peter Conforti studied Adam Robinsonâs LinkedIn posts and found that only 15% of the audience overlaps between posts. This reinforced the importance of reintroducing yourself every time. Most readers are encountering your content for the first timeâand optimizing for continuity is a mistake. Every post needs to maximize context, clarity, and credibility on its own.
For a time, Adam responded to every comment. He believed it deepened relationships and rewarded real people engaging with his content. But over time, spammy AI-generated comments made this effort feel less meaningful.
Still, he recommends meaningful commentingâespecially on posts from influential people in your spaceâas a way to form relationships. According to LinkedInâs own algorithm, second and third-degree comments (i.e., from people outside your network) are the most valuable for reach.
The Fastest Path to Trust Came From Video
Video became a key layer in Adamâs strategy. While text dominates LinkedIn, embedding short, personable videos adds emotional depth.
Viewers build parasocial connections through facial expressions, tone, and gestures. Adam recalls being stopped at trade shows by people who watched his videosâfeeling as though they had just spoken to him that morning.
Podcasting adds a voice layer, but video combines it all. When used sparingly and with strong text intros, it compounds familiarity fast.
Live Webinars as Edutainment
In addition to daily posts, Adam launched a weekly live webinar series. The format is part education, part entertainmentâsegments like "Pitch Slap" and "Unfuck My Startup" offer real-time interaction with guests and founders.
Live shows bring unpredictability and emotion that static podcasts donât. They also break through LinkedIn monotony, giving the brand a differentiated media property.
Guests like Sam Parr (My First Million), Jeremy Horwitz (ABM specialist), and Nathan Barry have appeared.
Jeremy Horwitz brings sharp ABM insights to the 'Unfuck My Startup' segment, helping founders refine customer targeting in real time. Sam Parr, meanwhile, is known for his brutally honest teardown style.
One of the showâs most talked-about moments was when Sam Parr shredded a founderâs landing page live on airâdriving home the value of honest, public critique. These moments turn the webinar into a high-signal, must-watch experience rather than another forgettable Zoom session., making the show a magnet for attention within the B2B creator-founder community.
Frequency and Algorithm Dynamics
Adam posts around 36 times per month. While some fear that posting too often cannibalizes reach, he disagrees. LinkedIn is not a sequential platform. Only a small fraction of your followers see each post.
He treats every post as a chance to make a first impression. And because content recirculates algorithmically, even older bangers can resurface months later.
Adamâs philosophy can be summarized in a single phrase: do cool stuff and talk about it.
Founders donât need gimmicks. They need to tell true, compelling stories about what theyâre building, why it matters, and what theyâve learned. Vulnerability, numbers, and repetition are more powerful than polished PR.
Content compounds. Founder brands scale trust faster than company brands. And in a world where people buy from people, every post is a brick in the public figure you're building.
The takeaway isnât that everyone should become a LinkedIn influencer. Itâs that modern startup growth is as much about narrative as it is about product. And if a 4-person team can hit $5 million ARR with zero ad spend, itâs worth paying attention to how they did it.
Top Tweets of the day
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70%+ of users are women, and nearly 90% are <35 đ
AI boyfriends are real!
â Olivia Moore (@omooretweets)
4:57 PM âą Jun 17, 2025
Women are the ideal target audience for top AI companion apps.
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We just hit No. 1 on Google for:
#1 â AI video
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...and a huge long tail of other terms.
This was the result of a massive effort over the past 12 months.
Hereâs how we did it:
â Sabba Keynejad (@sab8a)
4:34 PM âą Jun 13, 2025
Perks of building a brand and getting tons of backlinks for years on end.
3/
Rork grew 0 -> $1M ARR in ~3 months with 4 people đ€Ż
We grew to $1M faster than 99% of SaaS companies, starting from 2 people, no money, no company and a v0.1. Our product wasn't perfect but people still loved it
Make something you want yourself
â Daniel Dhawan (@daniel_dhawan)
11:07 PM âą Jun 16, 2025
Rork copied Boltâs idea but Bolt used React to build web apps and Rork used React Native to build mobile apps.
The leverage code allows is massive. Easily one of the best business models ever especially since AI Coding made coding 10-100x easier for coders.
Rabbit Holes
I made $800k building silly apps (this is how) by Adam Lyttle
Notes on Managing ADHD by Fernando Borretti
Guide to landing pages by Marketing Examined
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