Why Interviewing Others is Awesome for Building Your Brand

You might feel like an imposter interviewing someone really successful, but it’s actually a great way to level up your own brand.

In 2015, a then 18-year-old Harry Stebbings launched The Twenty Minute VC from his bedroom in London. No background in venture capital. No industry connections. No podcasting experience. Just a cheap mic, an internet connection, and two things:

Curiosity and initiative.

Harry wanted to learn about venture capital—how investors think, what makes a great startup, why some bets pay off while others flop. Fast forward a few years, and The Twenty Minute VC became one of the most influential podcasts in venture capital. Harry built a brand, a network, and eventually a venture fund—not by having all the answers, but by asking great questions.

Instead of waiting for the perfect job, a mentor, or an MBA to unlock those doors, he just started asking questions. Literally.

He cold-emailed VCs and invited them on his podcast.

Not to pitch them. Not to impress them. Just to learn from them.

And here’s the thing: they said yes. Not all of them, obviously—but a few. Guy Kawasaki and Brad Feld were early big names, but why did they bother?

You can say all you want about people being nice or willing to help out when you’re coming from the right place—but I actually think he stumbled on a hack that a lot of people don’t realize.

When you create a space for someone else to fill by asking questions and making content out of it, at worst you’re offering your services as an outsourced audio and video engineer to people—for free. When LinkedIn woke up one day and decided it no longer wanted to be just your professional address book, but instead become full blown media property, the pressure got turned up to feed the beast with your thought leadership. It was one thing to not be on Twitter or name whatever platform a small group of people in your field were on. Even in VC not everyone posts—but everyone in any kind of white collar job visits LinkedIn multiple times a week. This is a lot of pressure! Who in the world can come up with something new and interesting to say everyday?

Part one of the hack is that it takes the pressure off of both of you. You don’t have to have all the answers and they don’t have to originate the topic. When you ask someone questions, you’re doing them a favor because you’re helping them write the script and put out content in a way that they never would have been able to do that day on their own—either because of time limitations or creative exhaustion.

The second part of the hack is that it doesn’t even matter whether you have any kind of a following or not. The person you’re interviewing does and so does the person you interview after that person and so on.

When you interview someone, they’re going to tag you for asking such thoughtful questions or being part of a “great conversation”. At least a handful of people in their network are going to check you out—and the more conversations you have with experienced, thoughtful professionals, the more likely they are to convert to following you because you seem to be a continual stream of interestingness.

Keep at it and you’ll steadily pick up subscribers.

This is what I refer to in Visible Work as being a “public student”. So many people avoid putting themselves out as a thought leader because they don’t feel comfortable taking an authoritative tone—but even the most experienced people can continue to be lifelong learners by asking good questions.

And for those who feel like there are already enough interviews out there through the oversaturated podcast and livestream world, you’re looking at it the wrong way. This isn’t about being the first interview to show up in Google when you search for “entrepreneurship lessons”. That’s a very winner take all/search driven way of thinking about things.

In a feed, it’s all about whether your network, your subject’s network, and the extended connections around you have seen something on that topic recently. The answer, statistically, is probably not.

It’s “new and unique to them” which is all that matters.

If nothing else, even if they don’t see it in the feed, you’re bound to put your name out for something—be it a client or fundraising pitch, sales note, etc.—and someone is going to search for you or click through to your profile. Then, it’s not about being something new in their feed, but it becomes a matter of what are you showing when you’re trying to convert them to working with you?

An interview shows that you’re a curious, continual learner tapped into the latest best practices and someone with a solid network.

You could do worse.