For years, the standard advice for anyone trying to grow a business online was to act like a YouTube or TikTok clown.

You were told to scream at the camera in the first two seconds. Wave your hands wildly. Drop sudden sound effects. The whole game was to make your video so loud and entertaining that even people who didn’t care at all about your work would freeze and stare.

A lot of business owners did exactly that. And what happened?

They got thousands of views, but almost zero paying customers.

Think of it like a math tutor walking into a noisy school cafeteria and doing a backflip off a table. Everyone stops eating and stares. People clap and cheer. But when the tutor finishes the stunt, nobody actually hires them to help with algebra homework. They just watched the show and went back to their lunch.

Your social media feed has been doing the exact same thing. Big view counts make people feel popular, but empty applause doesn’t pay the bills.

The Big Shift: Apps Aren’t Just Stages Anymore

Here is the good news: the internet finally grew up.

Social media apps aren’t just looking for loud stunts anymore. In the past, the computers running these apps were kind of dumb. They only noticed if a big crowd gathered around a post. If people were commenting and clicking, the app just threw that video in front of everybody on the planet, whether it mattered to them or not.

Today, the apps have smart AI built right into them. When you post a video, the computer actually listens to the words coming out of your mouth. It reads the text on your screen. It figures out what you are talking about within seconds.

Instead of an entertainment stage, think of the app as a matchmaker.

Its entire job is to take your video and hand-deliver it to the exact person who is dealing with that problem right now.

OLD WAY: Shout loudly at a huge crowd → 100,000 views → Zero buyers
NEW WAY: Describe one real problem → 1,000 views → Three people who actually hire you

You don’t need a million teenagers to watch your clip. You just need the three or four people who actually need your help to see it.

The 3-Step Formula to Reach Real Buyers

If you want the app’s computer brain to work for you instead of against you, stop trying to be clever. You just have to follow three simple steps every time you talk:

1. Name the Person and the Broken Thing Right Away

Don’t start with generic advice like “Here are three great productivity tips for busy people!” That means nothing to anyone.

Instead, spend the first five seconds calling out the exact person and their exact headache:

• “If you run a local bakery and your flour supplier keeps doubling your delivery fees…”
• “If you own a small landscaping crew and your mowers keep breaking down mid-job…”

This does two great things at once:

• The wrong people scroll past: That’s completely fine! You don’t need random people watching.
• The right person freezes: The person who actually has that problem thinks, “Wait, they are talking directly to me.”
• The app knows where to send it: The computer listens to your sentence, understands the topic, and starts looking for other accounts that care about landscaping or baking.

2. Explain Why the Normal Fix Fails

Most people with a big problem have already tried the obvious advice, and it didn’t work.

If you tell someone with a broken engine to “just check the oil,” they will roll their eyes. But if you explain why the standard trick fails when the weather gets cold, they realize you actually know what you’re doing.

You don’t have to brag or wave a diploma around. When you explain someone’s headache better than they can explain it themselves, they automatically trust you.

3. Give Away the Real Answer

A lot of old-school marketers try to play sneaky games. They tell you about a problem, and then they say: “DM me ‘SECRETS’ to buy my $500 guide to see the answer!”

Nobody likes that. It feels pushy and cheap.

Instead, just explain how to fix the problem right there in the video. Show the actual steps.

The people who have no money will take your advice, try it out, and be grateful. But the people who have a budget—the busy shop owners and managers—will think: “This person really knows their stuff. I don’t have time to do this myself, so I’m just going to hire them to handle it for me.”

Good Videos Don’t Die in a Day Anymore

There used to be an annoying rule on social media: if your post didn’t blow up by dinner time, it was dead forever. You had to wake up the next morning and start all over again.

Because the apps now index and organize content by topic, your videos keep working for you for months.

If you make a great 60-second video in March explaining how to fix a specific scheduling mistake, that video can sit quietly on your page. When a business owner in July gets fed up and starts searching for help with scheduling, the app will pull up your March video and drop it right into their feed.

MARCH: You post a clear video about a specific fix.
APRIL: It quietly helps a few people.
JULY: A business owner hits that exact wall, finds your video, and hires you.

When you make a habit of posting simple, helpful explanations, you are building a personal library. Over time, that library works like a team of helpful assistants who tell people about your business 24 hours a day.

This is the same shift Gary Vee has been talking about — we are no longer in pure social media. We are in interest media, where the platform serves content based on what people actually care about right now, not just who they follow.

Drop the Costume and Just Talk

You do not need a fancy production studio, an expensive camera, or a hired marketing team to do this.

You just need to sit down and talk like a normal human being. Use the exact same words you would use if a friend or a customer walked into your office and asked, “Hey, what do I do about this?”

1. Say what’s broken.
2. Explain why the cheap fix didn’t work.
3. Show how you actually solve it.

If you stripped out every piece of generic, boring advice you’ve ever heard, what is the single biggest problem you know how to fix for someone right now?

Pick that one thing, speak directly to the person who has it, and let the computers do the heavy lifting.

The founders who keep chasing broad viral content usually end up in the wrong lane. The ones who make money are the ones who stay specific. That is the point in why only one lane of social media actually makes you money — the broad stuff brings the wrong people, and the specific stuff brings the ones who can pay.

If you could sit down today and give one solid piece of advice to your absolute favorite customer, what is the exact problem you would help them solve?

Here’s a great video by Daniel Priestly on how to know what to do next in the new world of social media

As an entrepreneur, landing big clients or expanding your customer base is always the goal, and it certainly feels exciting when you know you’re about to achieve it. But beyond the thrill of future expectations is the reality that handling a sudden influx of contracts or orders means buying more stock, upgrading your tools, paying for new suppliers, or hiring some help before payment hits your account. Without a clear plan, growth could paradoxically mean a depleted bank account.

Fortunately, a loan for business of any size can help you bridge the gap. You get immediate access to working capital, so you can grab time-sensitive opportunities without draining your savings. Instead of turning down big deals due to upfront costs, a loan keeps your daily operations running smoothly while you wait for those larger invoices to clear.

Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, a business loan can help you face these key growth expenses without running on empty.

1. Taxes, Registration, and Compliance

The amount you collect from customers isn’t entirely yours to spend. A portion may need to cover income tax, VAT, and other obligations based on your registration and revenue. Plus, you may need to pay for BIR and DTI registration, books of accounts, invoices, barangay clearance, a mayor’s permit, and annual renewals. Your actual percentage may be different, so consult a Philippine accountant or your BIR Revenue District Office.

Ultimately, even though you will pay tax weeks or months after the transaction, it’s better to set the money aside immediately to prevent a quarterly deadline from disrupting your regular operations. Suppose you earn PHP 120,000 during a strong month and use the whole amount to fund extra inventory. If you later discover that PHP 20,000 should have been reserved for taxes and compliance, your next month begins with a cash shortage. This example shows that treating those obligations as planned costs gives you a more accurate picture of your profit.

2. Costs That Rise with Every Sale

Selling 500 units may generate impressive revenue, but remember that every additional sale carries a cost. A product-based business, for instance, pays for inventory, packaging, marketplace charges, and delivery. Meanwhile, a service provider may need contractors, licensed software, transportation, or specialized materials to complete client work.

To prepare your cash flow, estimate how much cash each new batch or major project requires, how long the money remains tied up, and how quickly customer payments arrive. For example, if an item sells for PHP 1,000 but costs PHP 450 to produce, PHP 80 to package and ship, and PHP 70 in platform and payment fees, only PHP 400 remains for overhead, taxes, owner compensation, and profit.

3. Marketing and Sales

A growing business needs a dependable way to attract customers. You might need a website, professional product photography, social media content, online advertising, email software, and events. Consider a home-based food business spending PHP 15,000 on product photos, improved packaging, and targeted local advertising to introduce the brand to a wider market. The expense becomes reasonable if the campaign generates enough repeat customers and gross profit to recover the investment.

Of course, you need to measure marketing ROI according to business results. Instead of looking at just likes or views, track the amount spent, the number of qualified inquiries received, the conversion rate, and the gross profit those customers produced.

4. Systems and Equipment

Manual processes can become more expensive as order volume grows. You may lose hours creating invoices, following up on payments, scheduling appointments, or copying customer information between spreadsheets. Fortunately, an all-in-one payment, invoicing, and billing solution can help you transition into a digital workflow and power your growth.

Equipment deserves similar attention. A freelance video editor may need a faster computer to accept larger projects, while an online seller may need a label printer to process orders accurately. These purchases can increase capacity, shorten delivery times, and improve the customer experience.

5. Help and Eventual Employees

Once administrative tasks prevent you from serving customers or developing new offers, outside help may become financially sensible. Your first hire doesn’t have to be a full-time employee. A virtual assistant could manage customer inquiries for four hours each day, a freelance bookkeeper could organize your records each month, or a production assistant could help with packing.

However, it’s wise to budget beyond the person’s quoted fee to accommodate additional needs, such as additional equipment or software access. If you eventually hire permanent employees, prepare for SSS, PhilHealth, Pag-IBIG, payroll administration, leave, and other labor requirements as well.

6. Your Own Protection

As a solopreneur, your health and ability to work directly affect revenue. Yet many owners consistently postpone their own financial protection. A better practice is to budget for your own SSS, PhilHealth, Pag-IBIG, health coverage, insurance, and retirement savings. If a week of illness would prevent you from paying your bills, establish both a personal emergency fund and a business continuity plan.

Also, taking random withdrawals from the business account makes it difficult to determine your company’s profitability. So, withdraw a regular owner’s salary to create clearer boundaries between business money and personal money.

7. Emergency and Opportunity Reserves

Unexpected costs are unavoidable. A piece of equipment can break, clients might pay late, suppliers can increase prices at any time, and seasonal demand could fall below projections. An operating reserve covering three to six months of essential business costs can give you room to respond without sacrificing important investments.

Meanwhile, an opportunity fund allows you to act on a discounted inventory purchase, a promising marketing campaign, or equipment that could expand production. In this case, financing may support a well-defined opportunity, provided the expected return comfortably exceeds the total borrowing cost and repayments fit your cash flow forecast.

Prepare for What Comes Next

When you need additional working capital to cover business growth expenses, Maya Flexi Loan can provide up to Php 350,000, payable in 30 to 90 days. This can help cover expenses such as inventory, equipment, marketing, or other business needs while you wait for customer payments to come in. You can apply through the Maya Business app, using only 1 valid ID to register—easy, simple, and hassle-free.

Growth expenses are easier to manage once you identify them before they become urgent, which is the same discipline as getting the money right before a strong month gets spent twice.

The real question isn’t simply how large your business can become, but whether its financial foundation can support the size you’re working toward. A lot of the signs people read as failure start as a cash habit, not a talent problem.

How do you build a brand?

It is a question every new entrepreneur asks themselves. Some might say it is done by creating a product that meets a need; others might point to establishing a strong visual identity; some might suggest a combination of both; and a few might even cite “luck” as a factor. The truth is that building a brand today is a monumental task. It always has been, but in the current landscape—saturated by the rapid expansion of the digital world—it is exceptionally difficult. While advancements in AI have introduced positive tools and conveniences that are transforming the global digital environment, they have also generated a great deal of noise and low-value “junk content” that further clutters the digital space. In this context, competing for a brand identity means fighting to stand out in a volatile, overcrowded environment.

New entrepreneurs strive to carve out a space in this crowded landscape by creating LinkedIn posts, producing social media videos, running email marketing campaigns, updating websites, and managing profiles—all with the shared goal of making their brand stand out.

Amidst all this, a key question arises:

What remains of your brand when the screen goes dark?

It is a common mistake to think that a personal or corporate brand is confined to the digital realm. Truly successful brands understand the need to establish a presence even when screens are turned off, because your brand is still competing for attention against countless other things. Sometimes, those experiences take place off-screen; making the most of these opportunities for physical contact can be the difference between “just another brand” and a brand that truly stands out.

Your brand is more than just your digital presence

The significance and weight of your digital presence are undeniable: your logo, website, social media profiles, and content make up a large part of your identity, but they do not constitute the brand in its entirety.

Your brand also comes to life through the small interactions people have with your business. We are talking about elements such as product packaging, the materials or keepsakes customers take home after a promotional event, a thoughtful touch tailored to a specific client, or a useful object that remains in their workspace. The value of these elements cannot be measured in isolation—where they might seem insignificant at first glance—but rather in the aggregate, where they gain tremendous power, reinforcing familiarity with your brand in a way only they can.

People do not simply buy products or services; they also buy into the impression they form of your brand—the experience, personality, values, and consistency that define your business. Your physical brand presence can reinforce that impression; it is not about being everywhere or plastering your logo all over the place, but rather about identifying those moments where physical contact can add authentic value.

Think in terms of touchpoints rather than marketing channels.

A truly useful mentality shift involves moving away from thinking about your brand exclusively in terms of channels and focusing instead on touchpoints. How do you identify these touchpoints? They are the moments when the customer is closest to your brand or has the most direct interaction with it. In the digital realm, a contact point might be your website, a newsletter, social media, a podcast, or your online community.

On the other hand, physical touchpoints can include packaging, business cards, notebooks, event materials, printed photographs, merchandise, or gifts and souvenirs for clients.

Each of these moments offers a new opportunity for someone to experience your brand and keep it in mind; however, not every object bearing your brand deserves a place in people’s lives. More often than not, the most effective physical touchpoints are those that are useful, attractive, and relevant, or linked to a specific experience. That is where the strategy of effectively establishing your brand succeeds, setting it apart from the mere distribution of promotional material.

Giving a reason to keep it

What distinguishes something that gets discarded from something that is kept and naturally becomes part of a person’s surroundings? The difference lies in the object’s utility; a useful object doesn’t need to demand the owner’s attention—it can reinforce familiarity naturally and discreetly through its usefulness over time. 

Let’s look at a few examples; consider the custom magnet. Something as simple as a magnet can become a powerful physical touchpoint for a company—whether used at a conference, included in an event package, given as a thoughtful customer keepsake, or simply used to build a more recognizable brand presence.

Branded fridge magnets can be particularly effective because they can become part of an environment people interact with every day, while custom corporate magnets can extend the same principle to conferences, client gifting, promotional packages, and other business interactions. In either case, the object’s value doesn’t lie merely in having a logo on a fridge or office surface; the true value lies in creating something the recipient has a reason to keep—something that connects them with an experience and keeps the brand familiar without demanding their attention.

That staying power also depends on quality. When a physical touchpoint is scratch-resistant, fade-resistant, and safe for cold or freezer environments, it has a better chance of remaining useful and recognizable over time. The goal is not simply to put a brand on an object, but to create something that earns its place in someone’s everyday surroundings.

This is a near-universal principle applicable to many forms of physical branding. There are countless ways to put this into practice. Packaging can make an online purchase feel more personal. A printed photograph can preserve a shared experience. An event memento can evoke memories of the people met there.

Keep this phrase in mind: “The object is secondary to the experience.”

Start small and then scale up

As with anything in life, you have to learn to walk before you can run. Your physical branding strategy doesn’t need to launch with a massive campaign or an exorbitant investment; instead, experiment with a small batch, gauge the market’s reaction to your physical product, and then expand. It is like a lesson from biology: learn, adapt, expand—three words that define the growth stages of your strategy. Learn from the competitive landscape, adapt to changes in audience response, and expand with greater strength than when you started.

For certain personalized products, this might mean starting with a single unit rather than immediately committing to a large volume. Once a company identifies an application that works—whether for customer loyalty, events, conferences, or promotional packages—it can scale the idea to meet larger needs.

One common strategy in these scenarios involves volume discounts, which can make purchasing larger quantities more practical for corporate events, conferences, client gifting, and other high-volume applications..

This goes beyond a simple matter of pricing; it reflects a highly useful business principle:

“Start small. Test the idea. Discover what works best. Then, scale strategically.”

The same mindset that helps entrepreneurs create products can also help them build their brands.

Build a Brand People Can Encounter

A physical touchpoint works best when it feels like a natural extension of everything a brand represents. Your colors, imagery, messaging, typography, and personality should remain recognizable whether someone discovers you on Instagram, visits your website, meets you at a conference, or receives something from your company.

Think of these interactions as parts of the same story. A customer discovers your brand online, engages with your content, meets you in person, receives something thoughtful, and later encounters your brand again in their everyday environment. No single moment has to create loyalty. The power comes from consistency.

That is why the goal is not to choose between digital and physical branding, or to put your logo on everything. It is to identify the moments where your brand can add value and create meaningful experiences that extend beyond the screen.

In a world where entrepreneurs are constantly competing for another click, view, or scroll, being memorable requires more than visibility. It requires giving people something worth remembering.

Don’t just build a brand people can see. Build one they can encounter, remember, and experience.

Building a valuable private company can create an unusual financial situation. A founder may have significant wealth on paper while still keeping most of that wealth concentrated in a single, illiquid asset.

That becomes more noticeable as the company grows. Personal priorities change, families make larger financial commitments, and the amount of capital tied to the business can become difficult to ignore.

For that reason, more founders are looking at founder secondary liquidity strategies long before an acquisition or IPO is on the horizon.

The obvious solution is to sell some shares. But a direct secondary transaction is only one possible route, and it is not necessarily the best fit for every founder.

Why Founder Liquidity Becomes an Issue

Early in a company’s life, concentration is usually expected. Founders put their time, capital, and energy into creating one business.

Years later, however, the same concentration can become a financial constraint.

A founder may own equity worth millions while having comparatively little capital available outside the company. That can affect everything from investing and buying property to estate planning and long-term financial security.

The challenge is finding liquidity without unnecessarily disrupting the ownership structure that helped create the company’s value in the first place.

The Limits of a Traditional Secondary Sale

Selling private-company shares can be an effective way to turn part of a founder’s ownership into cash. Still, there are several considerations that make founders look at alternatives.

Taxes Can Change the Economics

A direct share sale generally creates a taxable transaction.

The actual tax treatment depends on the founder’s circumstances, jurisdiction, holding period, and the type of shares involved, but the important point is that the headline transaction value is not necessarily the amount the founder ultimately keeps.

Before comparing liquidity strategies, founders should therefore compare after-tax outcomes rather than simply comparing transaction sizes.

A New Investor May Join the Cap Table

A secondary sale also means transferring ownership.

Depending on the company’s governing documents and the structure of the transaction, the buyer may become a new shareholder. There may also be company approvals, rights of first refusal, transfer restrictions, or other requirements to work through.

For companies preparing for another financing round, keeping ownership relatively straightforward can be valuable.

Selling Solves Liquidity, but Not Always Diversification

A founder who sells a small portion of their stake may receive useful cash while still having the overwhelming majority of their wealth tied to the same company.

That may be perfectly acceptable. But if the real objective is reducing concentration rather than funding a particular expense, a simple cash sale may only solve part of the problem.

Start With the Goal, Not the Transaction

Before comparing structures, founders should decide what they actually want liquidity to accomplish.

For example, the objective might be:

• creating a personal financial cushion;
• purchasing a home or making another major investment;
• diversifying wealth outside the company;
• reducing exposure to a single private asset;
• preserving voting and ownership rights;
• avoiding unnecessary changes to the cap table;
• accessing value before the next financing or exit.

Two founders with similarly valuable equity can therefore choose very different strategies.

One may want several million dollars in cash immediately. Another may have enough cash already but want to reduce how much of their net worth depends on one company’s future performance.

Those are different problems and should not automatically lead to the same solution.

Common Founder Liquidity Options

Several approaches are available, although eligibility and transaction structure vary considerably between companies.

Direct Secondary Sale

The most familiar route is selling some existing shares to another investor.

This is relatively easy to understand: the founder transfers shares and receives cash in return.

It can make sense when cash is the primary objective and the founder is comfortable with the ownership, approval, and tax consequences involved.

The company and existing investors may still have significant influence over whether the transaction can proceed.

Company-Sponsored Tender Offer

Some private companies periodically organize tender offers that allow employees, founders, or early investors to sell a defined amount of equity.

These programs can provide an orderly liquidity window because transactions are coordinated at the company level.

The disadvantage is flexibility. Founders generally cannot decide independently when a tender offer will happen, how much equity they will be allowed to sell, or what terms will be available.

A founder who needs liquidity between company-sponsored windows may therefore need another approach.

Loans Secured by Private-Company Equity

In some situations, founders can borrow against the value of their private-company holdings rather than sell the shares.

This preserves ownership, but it introduces debt.

Interest expense, repayment obligations, collateral requirements, and the possibility of changing company valuations all need to be considered carefully.

For that reason, borrowing against founder equity is very different from simply monetizing part of a position.

Equity-Based Diversification Structures

Another emerging approach focuses on diversification rather than an outright sale.

Instead of transferring shares to a conventional secondary buyer, a founder may use part of their private-company equity to gain exposure to a broader portfolio of private businesses.

Depending on the structure, this can allow the founder to remain exposed to their own company’s future value while reducing the degree to which their wealth depends entirely on that one asset.

Accumulator, for example, offers a structure designed around founder secondary liquidity and diversification across private-company equity rather than requiring founders to simply sell their shares for cash.

For founders whose main concern is concentration, structures like these address a somewhat different objective from a traditional secondary transaction.

Questions to Consider Before Choosing a Liquidity Strategy

Private-market transactions can look straightforward from the outside while containing important differences in the details.

Before proceeding, founders should understand several points.

What Happens to Your Shares?

Determine whether you are selling shares, pledging them, exchanging economic exposure, or using them as collateral.

Those distinctions affect ownership, risk, taxes, and future participation in the company.

Does the Company Need to Approve the Transaction?

Private-company shares frequently come with transfer restrictions.

Review company documents and understand whether board approval, investor consent, or a right-of-first-refusal process applies.

What Happens to Voting Rights?

Liquidity does not always have to mean giving up governance rights, but that depends entirely on the structure.

Founders who want to remain involved in major company decisions should clarify this before moving forward.

What Is the Tax Treatment?

The transaction structure can materially change when and how taxes become due.

Founders should involve qualified tax advisors early rather than relying on broad assumptions about how a particular liquidity product works.

What Happens During the Next Funding Round?

A transaction that works today should also make sense if the company’s valuation changes, the company raises another round, or an exit opportunity emerges.

Understanding how the arrangement behaves in those scenarios is especially important for founders who expect to hold their equity for several more years.

Liquidity and Diversification Are Not the Same Thing

It is useful to separate two concepts that are often treated as interchangeable.

Liquidity means gaining access to usable capital.

Diversification means reducing dependence on one investment.

Selling $1 million of shares creates liquidity. What happens next determines whether it creates diversification.

If the founder spends the proceeds, there may be no meaningful change in the long-term concentration of their investment portfolio. If the founder invests the proceeds across multiple assets, concentration may decrease.

An equity-diversification structure approaches the problem differently by addressing concentrated ownership more directly.

Neither objective is automatically more important than the other. The right priority depends on the founder’s financial situation.

When Should Founders Start Exploring Their Options?

Ideally, before they urgently need money.

Liquidity decisions tend to become harder when a founder is working against a deadline. A home purchase, tax payment, personal investment, or unexpected expense can turn what should be a strategic financial decision into a rushed transaction.

Starting earlier provides time to compare alternatives, speak with existing investors, review tax implications, and understand company restrictions.

It also allows founders to separate the question of whether they want liquidity from the question of which structure they should use.

A Practical Framework for Evaluating the Decision

Before entering discussions with a secondary buyer or liquidity provider, founders can work through a few basic questions:

1. How much of my total net worth is currently tied to the company?
2. Do I primarily need cash, diversification, or both?
3. How much ownership am I willing to give up?
4. Do I want to preserve voting rights?
5. What tax consequences could the transaction create?
6. Will the company or existing investors need to approve it?
7. How would I feel if the company’s valuation increased substantially after the transaction?
8. How would the structure perform if the company’s value declined?

That last pair of questions is particularly useful.

Liquidity strategies should be evaluated across multiple possible outcomes, not only under the assumption that the company’s value continues rising.

Conclusion

A successful company can create substantial wealth for its founders while leaving that wealth difficult to access and highly concentrated.

A direct secondary sale remains one of the clearest ways to solve that problem, but it is no longer the only structure worth considering. Tender offers, secured financing, and equity-based diversification strategies each address founder liquidity in different ways.

The important question is not simply, “How can I sell some shares?”

It is, “What do I want my financial position to look like after the transaction?”

Founders exploring founder secondary liquidity should consider taxes, concentration, governance, ownership, and long-term participation in the company’s upside before choosing a structure. Looking at those factors early gives founders more flexibility to find an approach that matches both their personal finances and their plans for the business.